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Speaker 1: Hello, Next Picture Show listeners, here's a friendly reminder that

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Speaker 1: if you enjoy the Next Picture Show, you'll really enjoy

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Speaker 1: getting more Next Picture Show. By subscribing to our Patreon,

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Speaker 1: you can get our weekly newsletter for three dollars a month,

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Speaker 1: and unlock bonus episodes for five dollars a month. We

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Speaker 1: recently released a nearly hour long episode about our responses

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Speaker 1: to the movie version of Hamilton on Disney Plus, and

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Speaker 1: we're currently working on an episode about Gina Prince Bythewood

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Speaker 1: movies starting with the new Netflix action feature The Old Guard.

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Speaker 1: To subscribe to our Patreon, please visit patreon dot com

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Speaker 1: slash Next Picture Show.

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Speaker 2: It's very difficult to keep the line between the past

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Speaker 2: and the past.

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Speaker 3: You believe that someone out of the past we can

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Speaker 3: enter and take possession of a living bee.

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Speaker 4: We may be through with the past, but the past

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Speaker 4: is not through with us.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Next Picture Show, a movie of the

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Speaker 1: Week podcast devoted to a classic film and how it's

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Speaker 1: shaped our thoughts on a recent release. I'm Tasha Robinson

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Speaker 1: here with Genevieve Koski.

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Speaker 4: Scott Tobias Keith won't be.

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Speaker 1: Joining us this week. He tells us he looked out

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Speaker 1: of his house and he saw a shadow, so he's

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Speaker 1: staying inside for the next six weeks. That does not

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Speaker 1: make much sense to us, since it's summer and we

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Speaker 1: all have shadows and we're all still quarantined and podcasting

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Speaker 1: from home anyway, but we're not going to argue with

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Speaker 1: superstition in his place. However, we have a special guest

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Speaker 1: we're very excited to welcome on the show, Emily Vanderwerf,

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Speaker 1: our longtime co worker from back in the Avy Club

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Speaker 1: days now Vox's critic at Large. Emily. We are so

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Speaker 1: glad to have you here with us.

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Speaker 2: Hello, everybody. It's so good to see all of you.

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Speaker 1: And zoom means we're actually seeing you, which is fun.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I can look at all of your lovely

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Speaker 2: faces and zoom backgrounds, and I have a groundhog behind me.

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Speaker 2: Not to spoil what we're talking about, but people probably

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Speaker 2: saw it in like the title of the episode, so

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Speaker 2: people don't.

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Speaker 3: Look at the title of the episode as often as

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Speaker 3: you'd think, so I do know.

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Speaker 1: We got some compliments on our last episode titles pretty good.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I'm very happy to be joining you. We have

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Speaker 2: a rich and long history at the av club. From

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Speaker 2: my many years recapping fifteen shows a week, I'm slowly

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Speaker 2: driving myself around the pent.

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Speaker 1: Oh man, if you had that all to do over

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Speaker 1: again and over again and over again, you know thematic way,

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Speaker 1: I wonder if you'd make those choices. But let's get

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Speaker 1: into that in a minute.

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Speaker 4: I actually do kind of want to know what day

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Speaker 4: of recapping you would you would you would.

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Speaker 2: Repeat, Probably a Sunday, because I would get to re recap,

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Speaker 2: you know, shows like mad Men or Game of Thrones

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Speaker 2: or things like that were always they were really fun

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Speaker 2: to cover, and they were often the shows that, like

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Speaker 2: I got the most. Let me put it this way.

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Speaker 2: Mad Men we never got screeners for because Matt Weiner

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Speaker 2: is just a tremendous control freak. So it was always

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Speaker 2: a race to try to be the first one to post.

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Speaker 2: And I feel like if I was stuck in a

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Speaker 2: time loop, I could just memorize a recap and just

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Speaker 2: type it and have it up in like fifteen minutes.

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Speaker 4: I think it would be really.

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Speaker 3: Impressive, if nothing else, just to make Matt Winer angry.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, and just to get one over on Alan Seppenwall. Now,

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Speaker 2: it's all all we try to do.

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Speaker 4: Here.

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Speaker 1: Well, that's really what magical time loops that make you

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Speaker 1: become a better person are about, is getting one over

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Speaker 1: on Alan Seppenwall.

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Speaker 2: I mean exactly, Yeah, like that, there's a loophole in

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Speaker 2: they become a better person clause that's like, yeah, but

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Speaker 2: if you can get one over on Alan Seppenwall, you

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Speaker 2: got you gotta do that.

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Speaker 1: All right, let's pull the show back onto the rails.

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Speaker 1: With American movie theaters largely closed, we're continuing to focus

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Speaker 1: on quarantinement pairing films you can find on vod, cable, television,

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Speaker 1: or streaming services. This week, we're going to be discussing

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Speaker 1: a pair of comedies that almost literally share DNA one

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Speaker 1: launched a series of trophy followers. One of them is

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Speaker 1: one of those trophy followers. They both center on a

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Speaker 1: familiar plot device that we've been referencing in lessly. Jenney, Okay,

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Speaker 1: I'm just so bored.

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Speaker 3: I think this is about the five thousandth time I've

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Speaker 3: heard you read the same script, and I've run out

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Speaker 3: of ways to make it interesting for myself.

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Speaker 1: Wait, what, we've never done this pairing before.

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Speaker 4: Genevieve, you caught up at one of those time things

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Speaker 4: we've heard some much about.

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Speaker 2: Oh one of those. Yeah, those are rough, my sympathies.

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Speaker 4: They're not so bad if you get on a good day,

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Speaker 4: or if you have a personal project you've been wanting

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Speaker 4: to work on. On my last time loop, I got

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Speaker 4: really good at baking sour dough bread.

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Speaker 2: I use my last time loop to finally finish reading

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Speaker 2: War in Peace, the annotated version.

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Speaker 1: Okay, you two are going along with all of this

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Speaker 1: pretty fast. I'm not sure I buy into it at all.

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Speaker 1: It's all just an elaborate prank if I think you

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Speaker 1: might just be be messing with me.

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Speaker 3: Wait, what are you.

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Speaker 1: Doing, Jevieve?

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Speaker 3: Oh okay, that's weird.

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Speaker 1: Okay, you can stop that now. Batman excluding afridisiac alarm

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Speaker 1: clock secretly loves burrito lettuce. Okay, fine, I'm convinced you're

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Speaker 1: going through a time loop. Sorry about that. Sucks to

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Speaker 1: be you. Sorry you're bored?

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Speaker 3: Uh?

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Speaker 1: Is there anything we can do to help?

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Speaker 4: Not?

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Speaker 3: Really? This is usually where you asked me to tell

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Speaker 3: the listeners which films we're talking about this week, and

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Speaker 3: I amuse myself by reading your script and some increasingly

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Speaker 3: bizarre way. I've been adding some new versions to the Roo,

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Speaker 3: So today you get your choice. I can either read

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Speaker 3: our plans for the week while simultaneously playing Flight of

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Speaker 3: the bumb will be on nose flute, or seeing that

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Speaker 3: part of the script to the tune of You'll be

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Speaker 3: Back from Hamilton, complete with the Jonathan Groff signature spitting.

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Speaker 3: Or I could recite it all from memory while juggling

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Speaker 3: flaming chainsauce.

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Speaker 1: Okay, that all sounds like kind of a lot. Maybe

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Speaker 1: we'll just have Emily read it instead.

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Speaker 2: Emily, Oh, that Hamilton once sounded kind of fun. But sure,

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Speaker 2: I thought you'd never ask. Harold Ramis's nineteen ninety three

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Speaker 2: comedy Groundhog Day popularized what's become a popular cultural trope,

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Speaker 2: the idea of a person magically stuck in a period

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Speaker 2: of time that keeps resetting and endlessly repeating. Bill Murray

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Speaker 2: stars as Phil, a shallow, egotistical Pittsburgh weatherman on a

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Speaker 2: field trip to the small town of punk Satawny, where

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Speaker 2: he's supposed to be covering the annual Groundhog Day ceremony.

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Speaker 2: But then he wakes up the next day and it's

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Speaker 2: still Groundhog Day, and no one but him knows that

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Speaker 2: everything he's experiencing has already happened. She tries to exploit

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Speaker 2: the loop to put the moves on his producer Rita

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Speaker 2: played by Andy McDowell. Then he desperately tries to break

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Speaker 2: the loop. Then he eventually relaxes into it and starts

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Speaker 2: living his best life. In the new Hulu movie Palm Springs,

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Speaker 2: audiences first meet beer swelling slacker Niles played by Andy

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Speaker 2: Samberg as he's deep into the apathy and nihilism stage

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Speaker 2: of a similar repeating day phenomenon. Then he's joined by

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Speaker 2: Sarah played by Kristin Meliotti, who's having a bad day

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Speaker 2: for initially unclear reasons as she endures her sister's wedding.

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Speaker 2: As it turns out, time loop stories run very differently

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Speaker 2: when there's more than one person in them, But Palm

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Speaker 2: Springs matches Groundhog Day both in its balance of comedy

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Speaker 2: and romance and in some of its messages about what

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Speaker 2: it takes to live a meaningful life.

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Speaker 1: It's two comedies about time anomalies and how they teach

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Speaker 1: us to appreciate the present, the consequences of our actions,

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Speaker 1: and our own growth and development. On this edition of

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Speaker 1: the Next Picture Show, Okay, Genevieve how.

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Speaker 3: Is that not bad? I guess Emily, I still think

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Speaker 3: you're forty nine to three through of that bit. It's

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Speaker 3: my favorite, and I'm still kind of bored.

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Speaker 2: You want to borrow my copy of Worn Peace?

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Speaker 3: Sure, I'll try anything once.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's groundhog Day again.

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Speaker 5: At first, he was a little anxious.

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Speaker 6: No, what can you be checking out today, mister Conny's

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Speaker 6: I'd say the chance of departure is eighty percent.

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Speaker 5: But now we could do whatever we want. He's discovering

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Speaker 5: the possibility.

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Speaker 2: Don't you worry about cholesterol?

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Speaker 3: Why?

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Speaker 5: And living life like there's no tomorrow? Phil Connors, Because

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Speaker 5: there isn't.

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Speaker 6: I am an immortal. I have been stabbed, shot burned

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Speaker 6: with a frozen electrocuting. I'm a god, You're god. I'm

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Speaker 6: a god. I'm not the god.

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Speaker 5: He's not of his gourd, but to get what his

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Speaker 5: heart wants most?

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Speaker 1: Are you looking Fulfill a day for the weekend.

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Speaker 5: Means living this day over again until he gets it

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Speaker 5: right later or not.

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Speaker 2: I studied nineteen century French poetry. What a waste of time?

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Speaker 6: I study nineteenth century French poetry.

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Speaker 2: You speak French?

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Speaker 5: Bill Murray, Andy McDowell to the.

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Speaker 3: Ground hawk always drink to world peace?

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Speaker 2: What should we drink to?

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Speaker 6: I like to say a prayer and drink to world peace.

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Speaker 1: There's a particular formula for American redemption comedies that keeps

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Speaker 1: cropping up in cinema, where some shallow jerk of a

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Speaker 1: character is cruising along unaware of his shallowness and jerkiness,

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Speaker 1: until some supernatural contrivance gets in his way and forces

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Speaker 1: him to reevaluate his life and discover the value of

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Speaker 1: basic humanity. There have been a few female variants in

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Speaker 1: the formula, but in the heyday of the American version

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Speaker 1: of it from the late nineteen eighties to the early

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Speaker 1: two thousands, the jerk was invariably a man, often either

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Speaker 1: a less businessman, an absentee father, or both. When the

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Speaker 1: big magic plot contrivance enters his life. Maybe at first

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Speaker 1: he thinks it's a fantastic convenience, like Adam Sandler with

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Speaker 1: his magic time controlling, remote control and click, or Eddie

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Speaker 1: Murphy with his daughter's magic blanket imagine that. Or mel

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Speaker 1: Gibson with his mind reading and what women want. Maybe

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Speaker 1: the protagonists refuse to believe what's happening at first and

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Speaker 1: make a lot of big comedic mistakes like Jim Carrey

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Speaker 1: with his inability to lie and Liar Liar, or Eddie

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Speaker 1: Murphy again with his magic tree in a Thousand Words,

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Speaker 1: or maybe like Phil and Groundhog Day played by Bill Murray.

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Speaker 1: They go through every grief phase in the book in

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Speaker 1: rapid succession, but not necessarily in order. For Phil, a selfish,

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Speaker 1: shallow TV weatherman operating out of Pittsburgh, the annual mandatory

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Speaker 1: trip to punks a tawny Pennsylvania for the Groundhog Day

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Speaker 1: celebration is hellishly boring and beneath him. When he suddenly

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Speaker 1: starts waking up every day too, I Got you Babe

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Speaker 1: on his bed and breakfast clock radio and finding the

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Speaker 1: timeline his reset and it's still Groundhog Day. He zips

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Speaker 1: straight from denial to acceptance or at least I'm a

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Speaker 1: man exert of acceptance the season doing crazy things with

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Speaker 1: no consequences. Then he jumps to a form of bargaining,

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Speaker 1: trying to use his reset ability to learn all about

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Speaker 1: his new producer Rita in attempt to mount the perfect seduction.

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Speaker 1: A thousand face slaps later, he goes through anger and depression,

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Speaker 1: including a string of suicides that don't break his loop. Finally,

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Speaker 1: he starts making the most of his time, learning to

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Speaker 1: play the piano, getting to know the people around him

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Speaker 1: and helping them, and crafting what appears to be a

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Speaker 1: perfect day. Out of being exactly where he's needed, jerkdoim averted,

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Speaker 1: he finally wins Rita's respect and breaks out of the loop.

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Speaker 1: Groundhog Day didn't invent the time lub genre. Credit for

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Speaker 1: that often goes to The Girl Who Left Through Time,

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Speaker 1: a nineteen sixty five Japanese novel that's been adapted for

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Speaker 1: the screen multiple times in its home country, both in

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Speaker 1: live action and animation. Where Groundhog Day screenwriter Danny Rubin

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Speaker 1: does innovate with the story is infusing it with that

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Speaker 1: familiar jerk cured by magic, contrivance troupe. For the origins

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Speaker 1: of that one, we can look back to an even

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Speaker 1: older story, Charles Dickens a Christmas Carol. If Dickens didn't

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Speaker 1: invent the idea of a selfish grouch but deviled by

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Speaker 1: the supernatural until he mends his ways, he's certainly popular

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Speaker 1: and provided a future model for it, and it's been

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Speaker 1: revised and updated one hundred times in different ways, including

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Speaker 1: in Groundhog Day It's even easier to see the links

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Speaker 1: between groundhog Day and Christmas Carrol if you step back

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Speaker 1: a few years from groundhog Day and look at nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty eight as Scrooged, an overt Christmas Carrol update, also

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Speaker 1: starring Bill Murray in a very similar role as one

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Speaker 1: of those cold businessmen who needs to learn humanity. It's

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Speaker 1: worth wondering whether Bill Murray ended up in the starring

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Speaker 1: role in groundhog Day because of his very similar work

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Speaker 1: on Scrooged. In various published oral histories and looks back

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Speaker 1: on groundhog Day, the topic hasn't come up, but Ruben,

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Speaker 1: the screenwriter, has said that he was unpleasantly surprised when

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Speaker 1: the director, Murray's longtime friend and co conspirator, Harold Ramis,

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Speaker 1: cast Murray as the lead in the film. Rubin had

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Speaker 1: apparently imagined this is a more serious movie as suggested

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Speaker 1: by some of the grimmer elements, and given what he

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Speaker 1: calls the quote adolescent popcorn chomping Saturday afternoon comedy unquote

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Speaker 1: movies that Rames and Murray had worked on together in

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Speaker 1: various capacities, including Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, and Stripes, Ruben expected his

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Speaker 1: film to be dumbed down for this second day morning masses,

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Speaker 1: but ultimately groundhog Day is a pretty emotionally intelligent film.

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Speaker 1: The comedy works thanks to the enthusiastic performances from people

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Speaker 1: like Infinitely Present bit player, Stephen Tobolowski is ned Ryerson,

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Speaker 1: the insurance salesman, and Chris Elliott is Rita and Phil's cameraman,

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Speaker 1: and even Michael Shannon, in a small role, is a

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Speaker 1: young man who's about to get married to a woman

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Speaker 1: he's fighting with until Phil comes along to fix things.

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Speaker 1: More importantly, the fantasies in groundhog Day work. There's the

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Speaker 1: fantasy of having enough time to finally get everything in

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Speaker 1: your life absolutely perfect, the fantasy of finding a soulmate

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Speaker 1: and ending up with them. The fantasy that some sort

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Speaker 1: of benevolent force is looking down on the world, forcing

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Speaker 1: jerks to confront their own flaws no matter what it takes.

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Speaker 1: Groundhog Day is packed with tropes borrowed from earlier stories

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Speaker 1: and later stories borrowed heavily from in turn, but it

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Speaker 1: still feels fresh today because it's such a compelling story.

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Speaker 1: No one wants, as Phil puts it, to be stuck

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Speaker 1: in one place where every day is exactly the same,

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Speaker 1: and nothing you do matters. Groundhog Day is about finding

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Speaker 1: an ideal life and breaking out of all the loops

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Speaker 1: that contain us. It's also about not being a jerk.

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Speaker 1: What could be better than that?

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Speaker 6: This is Doris. Her brother in law Carl, owns this diner.

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Speaker 6: She's worked here since she was seventeen. More than anything

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Speaker 6: else in her life, she wants to see Paris before

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Speaker 6: she dies.

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Speaker 3: Oh boy, what are you doing?

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Speaker 6: This is Debbie Kleiser and her fiancee Fred here. They're

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Speaker 6: supposed to be getting married this afternoon, but Debbie is

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Speaker 6: having second thoughts.

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Speaker 1: What lovely ring.

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Speaker 4: This is Bill.

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Speaker 6: He's been a waiter for three years since he left

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Speaker 6: Penn State and had to get work. He likes the town.

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Speaker 6: He paints toy soldiers, and he's gay.

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Speaker 4: I am. This is Gus.

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Speaker 6: He hates his life here, which she's stayed in the name, but.

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Speaker 4: I could have retired. I'm half half twenty years.

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Speaker 1: Excuse me?

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Speaker 2: This is some kind of trick.

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Speaker 6: Well, maybe the real guy uses tricks, you know, maybe

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Speaker 6: he's not omnipotent. He's just been around for a long

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Speaker 6: he knows everything.

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Speaker 1: So normally we kick these things off with what's your

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Speaker 1: history with the film, what's it look like today? I

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Speaker 1: want to start this one friendly rewatching this film. What

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Speaker 1: struck me more than anything is how little time it

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Speaker 1: takes Phil to just completely start doing crazy things. It

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Speaker 1: is day three that he starts driving on train tracks

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Speaker 1: towards an oncoming train and gets himself arrested just doing

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Speaker 1: ridiculous stuff. So my question to you is, if you

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Speaker 1: were stuck in a recurring time loop, how long would

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Speaker 1: it take you before you started doing incredibly irrevocable, dangerous

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Speaker 1: things where if the loop stopped, they would have immense consequences.

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Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I think it's important to note that

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Speaker 3: we would all know immediately that we were in a

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Speaker 3: time loop because we've seen so many movies and television

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Speaker 3: shows dealing with time loop. So I would say day one,

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Speaker 3: we'd be like, oh, okay, this is what's happening for

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Speaker 3: me personally. I don't think I'm a destructive, confrontational enough

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Speaker 3: personality to go right to just absolute mayhem. I think

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Speaker 3: I would like go to the gluttony phase first and

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Speaker 3: just like eat all the things, do all the drug

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Speaker 3: just everything that could harm my body. I would just

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Speaker 3: do right up front and get it out of my system.

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Speaker 3: And then I don't know if I would ever progress

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Speaker 3: to the like destructive mania stage, but I don't know.

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Speaker 3: I think I would kind of enjoy it for at

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Speaker 3: least the first bit.

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Speaker 2: What about you, guys, I would kill being stuck in

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Speaker 2: a time loop, Like of all the fantastical movie premises,

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Speaker 2: this is one I would absolutely nail, like I do

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Speaker 2: think like I would have. I'd probably get there within

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Speaker 2: a few months, but I would spend the first several

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Speaker 2: months being like, Okay, to get out of a time loop,

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Speaker 2: you have to better yourself. So I would just be

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Speaker 2: like working on, you know, minor things I don't have

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Speaker 2: the time to do right now because I have to

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Speaker 2: work and stuff. But if you're stuck in a time loop,

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Speaker 2: you can blow off work. You can do whatever you want. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I would do that. The one thing I might not

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Speaker 2: do would be the inevitable self harm sequence, because I

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Speaker 2: would be terrified that the reason I was stuck in

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Speaker 2: a time loop was because the universe was just done

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Speaker 2: with me and like wanted me to be gone, And

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Speaker 2: then I would prove it right.

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Speaker 3: So, Yeah, there's enough of variance on the time loop

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Speaker 3: model out there that you can't be totally sure which

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Speaker 3: type of time loop you're caught in.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, wow, I think I'm on board with the gluttony

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Speaker 4: thing a little bit. That sounds pretty good. I mean,

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Speaker 4: I'm thinking of almost like the world of defending your life.

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Speaker 4: You know, I'd get like nine pies right, one for

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Speaker 4: every day that I'm in the time loop. I'm a

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Speaker 4: pretty peaceful person, so I don't really see myself getting

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Speaker 4: too violent. But I might get bored after a while,

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Speaker 4: so who knows.

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Speaker 1: I feel like I'm in the same place. I know

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Speaker 1: that you can't predict what you would do under extraordinary circumstances,

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Speaker 1: but I mean, we're all in extraordinary circumstances now. I'd

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Speaker 1: like to some degree being in quarantine does feel like

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Speaker 1: being in a time loop where every day is the

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Speaker 1: same and nothing you do matters. And I've mostly responded

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Speaker 1: to that by reading a lot more so I can

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Speaker 1: see myself spending the first twenty years in a time

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Speaker 1: loop just like reading.

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Speaker 4: I totally go see vertigo of a music box right

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Speaker 4: now in seventy million. I haven't been doing that out

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Speaker 4: of an abundance of caution, but I assume that you know,

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Speaker 4: I can't bring COVID into the time loops, so I'd go,

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Speaker 4: I mean.

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Speaker 2: Yes, but all the people who aren't stuck in the

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Speaker 2: time loop are gonna get COVID from you, and then

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Speaker 2: like it's going to be a universe where you've spread

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Speaker 2: it to all these people. I actually answering this question

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Speaker 2: is easy because we are stuck in a time loop

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Speaker 2: right now. So what I would do is, like on

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Speaker 2: day five, I would totally freak out and start crying,

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Speaker 2: and then like day ten, I would start doing every

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Speaker 2: project at once and like start reading war on Piece

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Speaker 2: and start several podcasts and start a sour dough starter.

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Speaker 2: Like That's what I would do in a time So

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Speaker 2: I have that answer.

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Speaker 3: I think I would probably spend a good one hundred

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Speaker 3: days of the time loop just like doing weird stuff

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Speaker 3: to my hair and letting it reset every day. This

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Speaker 3: is great.

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Speaker 1: This should have just been a Patreon like, let's let's

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Speaker 1: just talk about what we do in time loops for

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Speaker 1: like an hour. Yeah, we're swerving slowly back to the

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Speaker 1: film itself. Well, I mean, what do you think about

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Speaker 1: how Murray spends his time? Loub One of the things

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Speaker 1: that struck me as putting together the keynote, and thinking

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Speaker 1: about this trope of weird supernatural occurrence that punishes somebody

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Speaker 1: for being a jerk, is the fact that it always

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Speaker 1: happens to men at least, like sort of the classic

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Speaker 1: era of these movies, And I wondered if that's not

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Speaker 1: for a couple reasons. One, it was an era where

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Speaker 1: cinema was very uncomfortable about female characters that you might

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Speaker 1: not like. There weren't nearly as many kind of immature,

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Speaker 1: unlikable female characters who needed to fix their lives. There

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Speaker 1: were also weren't as many female lad movies, so having

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Speaker 1: like an entire film revolve around the inner life of

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Speaker 1: a woman wasn't something that came up a lot in

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Speaker 1: the eighties. But on top of everything else, they go

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Speaker 1: to comedians for this kind of thing, because the first

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Speaker 1: response to weird supernatural hubaju is like act out in

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Speaker 1: big comedic ways, And there was not a female equivalent

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Speaker 1: of Jim Carrey that I can think of, like operating

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Speaker 1: in the eighties and nineties. So these films do end

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Speaker 1: up being like conceptually a little samy, But to my mind,

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Speaker 1: at least Groundhog Day like stands out above all of them.

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Speaker 1: It's just it's crafted better, it's more interesting, and Bill

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Speaker 1: Murray is maybe a more appealing presence than a lot

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Speaker 1: of those characters. I'm curious how all of this plays

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Speaker 1: for you in twenty twenty, and like, what do you

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Speaker 1: think about watching the movie now, and particularly about Murray

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Speaker 1: in this role.

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Speaker 4: I mean, I love this movie, and in fact, I've

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Speaker 4: seen it so many times I didn't necessarily need to

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Speaker 4: see it for this podcast. We watched it on one

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Speaker 4: of our family movie nights that we've been having during

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Speaker 4: Quarantine with the girls, which is another thing I really

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Speaker 4: like about the movie that it's for everyone. It's a

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Speaker 4: PG movie. I think maybe PG thirteen, but PG everybody

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Speaker 4: can watch it, yeah, PG right, So it's for the family.

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Speaker 4: And it kind of reminded me it's almost the only

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Speaker 4: film of its era that I can think of that

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Speaker 4: feels as strong as the type of studio comedies that

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Speaker 4: were made on a script level, as sort of the

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Speaker 4: heyday of studio comedies of like the thirties and forties,

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Speaker 4: because the bones of it are so strong, you know,

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Speaker 4: so you have all that, you have just this really ingenious,

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Speaker 4: well worked out script give so much and it so

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Speaker 4: sturdy and then you can put on top of it,

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Speaker 4: you know, something that is modern, which is somebody like

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Speaker 4: Bill Murray who has improvisational skills and has the ability

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Speaker 4: to riff a little bit, and those two things in

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Speaker 4: combination are just magical, I think. I think it's such

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Speaker 4: a funny movie and there's just so much to think

437
00:20:33,040 --> 00:20:36,040
Speaker 4: about with that premise, you know, and it plays great

438
00:20:36,119 --> 00:20:37,400
Speaker 4: now as it always did.

439
00:20:37,640 --> 00:20:40,159
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, Emily already mentioned this sort of like

440
00:20:40,440 --> 00:20:44,480
Speaker 3: quarantine element of watching it in twenty twenty and how

441
00:20:44,560 --> 00:20:47,680
Speaker 3: that is going to inform it, And this movie has

442
00:20:47,760 --> 00:20:51,800
Speaker 3: definitely come up just in the conversation over the past

443
00:20:51,880 --> 00:20:55,320
Speaker 3: few months. Just it's a very handy symbol of what

444
00:20:55,359 --> 00:20:58,960
Speaker 3: we're going through. But this is also a movie I love.

445
00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:01,240
Speaker 3: I've seen more times that I can count. I did

446
00:21:01,280 --> 00:21:03,840
Speaker 3: rewatch it for this because I do my homework, but

447
00:21:04,840 --> 00:21:06,959
Speaker 3: I also watched it with the whole household, you know,

448
00:21:07,080 --> 00:21:09,320
Speaker 3: so I definitely know to back you up there as

449
00:21:09,359 --> 00:21:12,680
Speaker 3: far as it being sort of an intergenerational crowd pleaser.

450
00:21:12,800 --> 00:21:16,560
Speaker 3: But what struck me as different this time was the

451
00:21:16,680 --> 00:21:21,560
Speaker 3: romance between Phil and Rita, which I had kind of

452
00:21:21,880 --> 00:21:25,359
Speaker 3: like in my mind over the years, had blurred into

453
00:21:25,840 --> 00:21:28,919
Speaker 3: just like the conclusion of it. I forgot about the

454
00:21:28,960 --> 00:21:33,320
Speaker 3: whole earlier part where he basically tries to trick her

455
00:21:33,359 --> 00:21:37,000
Speaker 3: into sleeping with him, and there's that really uncomfortable bed

456
00:21:37,040 --> 00:21:39,199
Speaker 3: and breakfast, the sequence where he brings her back to

457
00:21:39,240 --> 00:21:43,640
Speaker 3: his room and he's like really pressuring her, And that

458
00:21:44,040 --> 00:21:47,320
Speaker 3: reads very differently today than it did when I was

459
00:21:47,359 --> 00:21:51,320
Speaker 3: a kid watching this movie and seeing scenes similar to

460
00:21:51,400 --> 00:21:53,800
Speaker 3: that in movies that were coming out around this time

461
00:21:53,800 --> 00:21:56,840
Speaker 3: and earlier, that was just sort of something that was

462
00:21:57,119 --> 00:22:01,760
Speaker 3: used as a comedic beat, And watching it now it

463
00:22:01,800 --> 00:22:05,240
Speaker 3: definitely made me more uncomfortable than it has before. And

464
00:22:05,640 --> 00:22:08,560
Speaker 3: I don't think it really ruins or even changes a

465
00:22:08,600 --> 00:22:10,800
Speaker 3: movie in a really fundamental way, because we are meant

466
00:22:10,840 --> 00:22:14,040
Speaker 3: to understand the Phil is a callous jerk still at

467
00:22:14,040 --> 00:22:17,679
Speaker 3: that period, and it does set up his redemption of

468
00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:21,600
Speaker 3: what winning her over actually means later in the movie.

469
00:22:21,800 --> 00:22:25,199
Speaker 3: But I admit that until this rewatch, that part of

470
00:22:25,240 --> 00:22:28,159
Speaker 3: it had kind of just turned fuzzy and nebulous in

471
00:22:28,200 --> 00:22:31,040
Speaker 3: my mind, and it really came back in sharp relief

472
00:22:31,040 --> 00:22:31,679
Speaker 3: on this viewing.

473
00:22:32,320 --> 00:22:35,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of just painted as quirky behavior, you know,

474
00:22:35,480 --> 00:22:38,240
Speaker 2: like not good behavior, but also not like you know,

475
00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:41,639
Speaker 2: over so bad behavior. Yeah, not like assault. It's just like,

476
00:22:41,680 --> 00:22:44,160
Speaker 2: oh he's a bad guy. He's doing a bad thing,

477
00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:46,160
Speaker 2: and the music goes boom boo boo boo boop.

478
00:22:46,359 --> 00:22:48,320
Speaker 4: Yeah.

479
00:22:48,440 --> 00:22:53,600
Speaker 2: I love Frank Capra, Presmansturgis movies like that, and this

480
00:22:53,680 --> 00:22:57,879
Speaker 2: movie feels very in conversation with those films in a

481
00:22:57,880 --> 00:23:01,800
Speaker 2: lot of ways. And what I realized was the American

482
00:23:01,840 --> 00:23:05,160
Speaker 2: small town movie kind of is hard to make now

483
00:23:05,280 --> 00:23:08,440
Speaker 2: because we don't believe in these idyllic small towns anymore.

484
00:23:08,920 --> 00:23:11,439
Speaker 2: And the reason this one works, and I'd have to

485
00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:13,000
Speaker 2: think about it, but it might be the last, like

486
00:23:13,080 --> 00:23:17,320
Speaker 2: truly great one, is because it brings this outsider from

487
00:23:17,359 --> 00:23:20,760
Speaker 2: the big city into this small town and then traps

488
00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:23,600
Speaker 2: him there and forces him to live by its values.

489
00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:26,800
Speaker 2: And in twenty twenty, when the American small town has

490
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:30,080
Speaker 2: largely fallen apart, when we're sort of sitting on the

491
00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:33,639
Speaker 2: edge of you know, any number of incipient disasters and

492
00:23:34,119 --> 00:23:37,560
Speaker 2: ways the world could completely collapse, and one we're living

493
00:23:37,600 --> 00:23:41,160
Speaker 2: through right in the moment, the idea of being trapped

494
00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:44,320
Speaker 2: in a town that idyllic, being trapped in a place

495
00:23:44,359 --> 00:23:47,160
Speaker 2: where people care about each other, where you know ned

496
00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:51,680
Speaker 2: Ryerson is a little overbearing but ultimately friendly. Like there's

497
00:23:51,720 --> 00:23:57,280
Speaker 2: an alluring, escapist element to that that I'm sure was

498
00:23:57,760 --> 00:23:59,719
Speaker 2: the case in the nineties but plays so much more

499
00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:03,400
Speaker 2: po now, Like there is a there's a real longing

500
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:05,760
Speaker 2: within me to go back to a space like this,

501
00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:09,440
Speaker 2: and yet a space like this, you know, has never

502
00:24:09,520 --> 00:24:11,720
Speaker 2: existed and now really doesn't exist.

503
00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 1: There is a degree to which the portrayal of the

504
00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:18,120
Speaker 1: small town in this movie reminds me of The Last

505
00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:23,359
Speaker 1: Seduction and Luda Fiorentino's character Wendy being a big New

506
00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:26,399
Speaker 1: York City girl who ends up strand in the straight

507
00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:29,040
Speaker 1: town and then she's just like she's I want to say,

508
00:24:29,040 --> 00:24:32,240
Speaker 1: a shark among sheep does Sharks typically pray on sheep

509
00:24:32,400 --> 00:24:36,399
Speaker 1: like that. That's one of their big sharknados do. Oh yeah,

510
00:24:36,440 --> 00:24:39,879
Speaker 1: So she's like a shark nado in the middle of

511
00:24:39,880 --> 00:24:43,440
Speaker 1: a sheep pasture. There's just there's something about the kind

512
00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:47,200
Speaker 1: of like like amiable gullibility of the small town that

513
00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:49,720
Speaker 1: enables Filed just kind of work his way through it.

514
00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:51,560
Speaker 1: You know, when he finds a woman in the diner

515
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:55,440
Speaker 1: that's like, yeah, sure, I can seduce her with basically

516
00:24:55,480 --> 00:24:58,119
Speaker 1: three words like he he doesn't even bother finding out

517
00:24:58,160 --> 00:25:00,880
Speaker 1: what that teacher was, like anything else about her. It's

518
00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:05,600
Speaker 1: it's pretty much just name school teacher's name. And then

519
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:08,040
Speaker 1: the next thing we know, he's in bed with that lady.

520
00:25:08,080 --> 00:25:11,199
Speaker 1: And it's just because everybody in that town seems so

521
00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:15,240
Speaker 1: like cheerfully dumb. We're so used to kind of the

522
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:19,120
Speaker 1: last seduction model where it feels like, you know, New

523
00:25:19,160 --> 00:25:21,280
Speaker 1: York City is kind of kind of the bastion of

524
00:25:21,560 --> 00:25:24,879
Speaker 1: fierce toughness, and then the small rural town is where

525
00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:28,040
Speaker 1: like everything goes slower and everybody is softer and more

526
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:30,280
Speaker 1: naive because they can afford to be the fact that

527
00:25:30,359 --> 00:25:34,159
Speaker 1: here the big tough city is Pittsburgh is nearest, so

528
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:36,760
Speaker 1: you can tell, kind of cracks me up, to be honest.

529
00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:41,359
Speaker 4: The other I think appeal to this film, the fantasy

530
00:25:41,359 --> 00:25:43,720
Speaker 4: of it, I guess, is that it takes place in

531
00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:46,760
Speaker 4: a literal moral universe, right. I mean, it's it's a

532
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:51,919
Speaker 4: place where you are ultimately rewarded for being good. I mean,

533
00:25:51,960 --> 00:25:54,080
Speaker 4: what's more comforting than that that if you make the

534
00:25:54,160 --> 00:25:57,239
Speaker 4: right decisions, if you act nobly, if you you know,

535
00:25:57,560 --> 00:26:01,439
Speaker 4: are there with a car jack the tires go flat

536
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:04,400
Speaker 4: or you're there, you know, if you know, giving people

537
00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:07,439
Speaker 4: the Heimlich maneuver and saving them from palen trees and

538
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 4: doing all the things that he ends up doing, and

539
00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:13,119
Speaker 4: ultimately behave selflessly rather than push yourself on somebody as

540
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:15,920
Speaker 4: he does with Rita at the ben and Breakfast. There's

541
00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:17,879
Speaker 4: a reward for that at the end of the line.

542
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:21,200
Speaker 4: And we'd like to think that, you know, karmically speaking,

543
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:23,320
Speaker 4: that you know, the good that we put out in

544
00:26:23,359 --> 00:26:27,000
Speaker 4: the world is gonna come back and reward us in

545
00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:30,240
Speaker 4: some way, and this is a movie that is all

546
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:30,679
Speaker 4: about that.

547
00:26:31,080 --> 00:26:33,239
Speaker 1: Emily. Now, I know you kind of come from some

548
00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:37,160
Speaker 1: of the same conservative religion family background that I do.

549
00:26:37,600 --> 00:26:40,639
Speaker 1: I'm curious how much this played for you like like

550
00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:43,800
Speaker 1: a Christian fable, like a morality play fable where the

551
00:26:43,840 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 1: implication isn't just karma, isn't just some sort of like

552
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:52,359
Speaker 1: general benevolence in the universe, but specifically plays as like

553
00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:55,359
Speaker 1: it's like he gets sent to purgatory. Effectively, it's like

554
00:26:55,800 --> 00:27:00,040
Speaker 1: some form of source is conscious of his misbehavior and

555
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:02,679
Speaker 1: like actively wants him to become a better person and

556
00:27:02,680 --> 00:27:05,320
Speaker 1: rewards him when he does. I don't know if that's

557
00:27:05,440 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 1: in any way baked into the film or it's just

558
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:09,399
Speaker 1: my background. How did you translate that?

559
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:11,960
Speaker 2: You know, when I saw this as a kid in

560
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:16,560
Speaker 2: the conservative church, certainly we really stretched ourselves to apply

561
00:27:16,760 --> 00:27:20,359
Speaker 2: religious readings to anything we possibly could. I remember my

562
00:27:20,400 --> 00:27:22,879
Speaker 2: father telling me The Little Mermaid was about how Jesus

563
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:26,160
Speaker 2: died for our sins, which is like a real stretch,

564
00:27:26,280 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 2: but definitely I thought that was true for several years.

565
00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:30,800
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, yeah, that was in there. They

566
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:33,120
Speaker 2: made sure to do that. One of the things that

567
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:38,600
Speaker 2: often happens is these sort of conservative Christian spaces fine

568
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 2: things from mainstream pop culture that they can be like,

569
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:44,960
Speaker 2: this is a good Christian message. And Groundhog Day definitely

570
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:48,479
Speaker 2: came up a number of times, especially in the late nineties,

571
00:27:48,520 --> 00:27:51,720
Speaker 2: as it kind of switched over toward folks saying, you know,

572
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:54,840
Speaker 2: oh this is it's good to engage with pop culture,

573
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:57,399
Speaker 2: it's good not to shun it. And Groundhog Day was

574
00:27:57,440 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 2: one of those movies that was in every like hidden

575
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 2: Christian movie, hidden Christian messages in mainstream movies, books that

576
00:28:03,640 --> 00:28:07,120
Speaker 2: like Christian bookstores, and yeah, I think despite the fact

577
00:28:07,119 --> 00:28:09,479
Speaker 2: that it's implied that Rita and Phil sleep together at

578
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 2: the end, which is usually verboten. Whether they have sex

579
00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:14,639
Speaker 2: or not, we don't know, but they definitely fall asleep

580
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:17,200
Speaker 2: in bed together. The rest of the movie is sort

581
00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 2: of seen as this like moral story, this parable I guess,

582
00:28:21,359 --> 00:28:24,800
Speaker 2: about a guy who needs to learn something and gets

583
00:28:24,880 --> 00:28:27,280
Speaker 2: trapped in a time space where he can do that.

584
00:28:27,359 --> 00:28:29,919
Speaker 2: And again you point to a Christmas Carol that's a

585
00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:32,320
Speaker 2: very similar story, and that's a story that's also been

586
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:36,040
Speaker 2: heavily co opted by Christian culture. So I think it's

587
00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:40,240
Speaker 2: an astute point, and I certainly think that other folks

588
00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:42,360
Speaker 2: who still are living in that world have taken this

589
00:28:42,480 --> 00:28:45,160
Speaker 2: movie as some sort of a calling card for themselves.

590
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:48,400
Speaker 1: When I was reading up on just there are a

591
00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:50,920
Speaker 1: bunch of you know, oral histories or behind the scenes

592
00:28:51,040 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 1: or we talked to so and so ten years later

593
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 1: kind of pieces. And Raymis in particular said that after

594
00:28:57,000 --> 00:28:59,440
Speaker 1: this movie came out, like for years, he would hear

595
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 1: from people involved in various churches. You know, Buddhist leaders

596
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 1: would come to in and say, oh, it's so nice

597
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:07,160
Speaker 1: that you made a Buddhist film, And Jewish leaders would

598
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:08,480
Speaker 1: come to and say it's so nice that you made

599
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:10,720
Speaker 1: a Jewish film, and so forth. There was just sort

600
00:29:10,760 --> 00:29:14,600
Speaker 1: of a feeling that maybe there's a general applied morality

601
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:17,040
Speaker 1: that can work with a lot of religious sets. And

602
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:20,280
Speaker 1: I find that interesting since it can be so difficult

603
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:25,080
Speaker 1: for people who identify as religious to accept the truths

604
00:29:25,080 --> 00:29:27,680
Speaker 1: that other religions have. But there seems to be something

605
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:31,120
Speaker 1: in this movie that's maybe anodyne enough to not offend

606
00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:34,480
Speaker 1: any particular religious group, but then they as a result,

607
00:29:34,520 --> 00:29:36,200
Speaker 1: they claim it as their own, which I find kind

608
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:36,840
Speaker 1: of fascinating.

609
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 2: I do think that there is this element of all

610
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:44,160
Speaker 2: good like religious stories from like the medieval era often

611
00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:47,320
Speaker 2: had a section of like where sin, you know, would

612
00:29:47,320 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 2: happen and sin was not rewarded, but you still got

613
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:52,560
Speaker 2: to get the vicarious thrill of, you know, seeing the

614
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 2: seven deadly sins carried out on stage or whatever. That's

615
00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:57,840
Speaker 2: really present in this movie in a way it isn't

616
00:29:57,840 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 2: in a more overtly Christian movie. We get to see

617
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:02,640
Speaker 2: Phil be really bad and do really bad things, and

618
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 2: sometimes in very funny ways, before he improves, and like,

619
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:09,440
Speaker 2: the central idea of all religions is Okay, you do

620
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:11,560
Speaker 2: bad things and then you learn from them and you

621
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:15,160
Speaker 2: become a better person over time. And I think what

622
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:19,200
Speaker 2: makes this movie so strong as a religious metaphor. Is

623
00:30:19,800 --> 00:30:22,880
Speaker 2: it acknowledges that we might commit the same sins over

624
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:25,360
Speaker 2: and over and over and over again before we realize,

625
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:28,520
Speaker 2: you know what, this isn't leading me nowhere. It's just

626
00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 2: that we don't get like an eternal dream space in

627
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:33,280
Speaker 2: which to do that. We just get the one life

628
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:35,960
Speaker 2: and maybe you learn like one lesson about how to

629
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:38,440
Speaker 2: be a better person, like across a decade.

630
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:41,040
Speaker 3: So here's a question I have for everyone as far

631
00:30:41,080 --> 00:30:45,240
Speaker 3: as the morality message of this film. Are we to

632
00:30:45,560 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 3: interpret Phil's escape from the time loop as a result

633
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:54,040
Speaker 3: of his cumulative self improvement or the result of a

634
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:58,200
Speaker 3: single act in this case, maybe not sleeping with Rita

635
00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 3: even though she was in the bed with him, you know,

636
00:31:00,600 --> 00:31:03,120
Speaker 3: and what he wanted was right there and he denied

637
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:06,120
Speaker 3: it to himself. Like I think you could interpret that

638
00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:08,480
Speaker 3: as being like the single act that help him escape,

639
00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 3: or do you think it's supposed to be like, you know,

640
00:31:11,200 --> 00:31:14,000
Speaker 3: he reached the right level of goodness and that brought

641
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 3: him out.

642
00:31:14,800 --> 00:31:17,880
Speaker 2: I'm literally just realizing that last scene is not ambiguous

643
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:20,360
Speaker 2: because I was taught forever as a child that they

644
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:23,120
Speaker 2: that they probably had sex, but we were supposed to

645
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:25,760
Speaker 2: ignore that because it's a Hollywood movie and that sort

646
00:31:25,760 --> 00:31:28,200
Speaker 2: of stuff happens in a Hollywood movie, and so I've

647
00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:29,600
Speaker 2: just always been like, you know, I don't think they

648
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 2: actually had sex, but it's ambiguous. It's not I.

649
00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:37,240
Speaker 1: Don't think it is they I mean, Harold Remis apparently

650
00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 1: was planning on having them wake up not wearing any

651
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 1: clothes and was basically told by other people in the

652
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 1: film like, don't do that. You will ruin the film

653
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:50,239
Speaker 1: if you do that, And he seemed to think it

654
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 1: was ambiguous, but just I don't know. The way they're

655
00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 1: positioned and the way they talk to each other, and

656
00:31:56,160 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 1: then the way Rita kind of implies that, like now

657
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:02,560
Speaker 1: they can have sex for the first time. I don't

658
00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:05,800
Speaker 1: think it's all that ambiguous that they did not actually

659
00:32:05,880 --> 00:32:06,320
Speaker 1: have sex.

660
00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:08,560
Speaker 2: I was watching it today and was like, you know what,

661
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:11,320
Speaker 2: I remembered this ending very differently, and like, I've seen

662
00:32:11,360 --> 00:32:14,000
Speaker 2: this movie six seven, eight times across my life.

663
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:18,160
Speaker 4: So the consensus they did not that's my consensus.

664
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:21,080
Speaker 3: Okay, I think they just had a nice sleepover, nice

665
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:22,720
Speaker 3: platonic sleepover, like.

666
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:25,280
Speaker 4: You of they had one of those, though earlier in

667
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:27,120
Speaker 4: the film right where she stays up with him and

668
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:30,440
Speaker 4: he's they're flipping the cards into that hat or whatever.

669
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:32,880
Speaker 4: I mean, that's you know, they fall asleep in that

670
00:32:33,080 --> 00:32:34,320
Speaker 4: yeah scene. Right.

671
00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:36,720
Speaker 1: I don't think sex is even remotely on the table

672
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 1: that time around, Like she's she's demonstrably there as.

673
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 4: A scientist experiment, right, Yeah, Okay.

674
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:45,120
Speaker 1: That said, like, I don't think that his big act

675
00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:47,880
Speaker 1: of goodness here is not having sex with her when

676
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 1: he could. I also remember this film. I don't think

677
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:53,320
Speaker 1: I've seen this since the nineties, and I also remembered

678
00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:56,600
Speaker 1: it ending kind of differently. I remember her being along

679
00:32:56,680 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 1: with him on this tour of the town and seeing

680
00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:01,240
Speaker 1: all of these good things that he did, as opposed

681
00:33:01,280 --> 00:33:04,280
Speaker 1: to just sort of seeing the evidence later. My understanding

682
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:07,440
Speaker 1: of the ending was always there was not like a

683
00:33:07,480 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 1: single act, like you know, doing the right things in

684
00:33:10,720 --> 00:33:13,520
Speaker 1: order to make her fall in love with him back

685
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 1: that he had basically reached the point of a perfect day.

686
00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:20,360
Speaker 1: He'd reached the point where if he you know, was

687
00:33:20,440 --> 00:33:23,040
Speaker 1: in the time loop for another hundred years, he would

688
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:27,080
Speaker 1: never change that day because he helped the maximum number

689
00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:29,120
Speaker 1: of people, he did, the maximum number of right things

690
00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 1: he did, the things that made him feel good and

691
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:34,320
Speaker 1: that benefited everybody else, and he just kind of achieved

692
00:33:34,360 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 1: his end perfection. I always thought on some level, you

693
00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:42,120
Speaker 1: could choose to interpret it as he does that exact day,

694
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:44,400
Speaker 1: like hundreds of times, if it comes to it.

695
00:33:44,840 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 4: I always thought about it as a lot of different things,

696
00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:50,960
Speaker 4: Like you know, if you're opening a safe, you gotta like,

697
00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 4: I don't know how do all those locks, however those

698
00:33:53,480 --> 00:33:55,920
Speaker 4: locks work, things drop. I don't know how well how

699
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:58,840
Speaker 4: a lock works, but in any case, several of those

700
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:00,920
Speaker 4: things have to drop into place, and they all drop

701
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:03,120
Speaker 4: into place, and the vault opened up. So it was like,

702
00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:05,320
Speaker 4: I don't know, ready player one or something in that respect,

703
00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:07,040
Speaker 4: Like you got all the things.

704
00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:09,880
Speaker 3: You read one references, Scott co.

705
00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:13,920
Speaker 1: Bite your damn evil tongs, got the bias?

706
00:34:15,719 --> 00:34:17,920
Speaker 4: I mean though, he just got got all the eighties

707
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:21,239
Speaker 4: references all in a row, and uh, and that was

708
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:23,319
Speaker 4: enough to redeem him.

709
00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:25,399
Speaker 1: Well, let me ask you this, I mean, how much

710
00:34:25,719 --> 00:34:28,360
Speaker 1: is he in need of redemption? Kind of one of

711
00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:30,680
Speaker 1: the other things that struck me about this, maybe because

712
00:34:30,719 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 1: I was thinking of Scrooged, and in Scrooge, they really

713
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:35,839
Speaker 1: go out of their way to make that like a

714
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:40,440
Speaker 1: harsh and unemotional man who hurts other people, not just

715
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:43,719
Speaker 1: without particularly caring, but almost taking a little bit of

716
00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:47,120
Speaker 1: glee in his ability to harm other people. Phil just

717
00:34:48,400 --> 00:34:51,560
Speaker 1: about the worst thing he does in the lead up

718
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:55,239
Speaker 1: to the time loop is imply that he thinks he

719
00:34:55,239 --> 00:34:59,240
Speaker 1: can do better than Pittsburgh and then sexually harassed his producer.

720
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:02,920
Speaker 1: And the sexual harassment isn't great. I find it kind

721
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:06,160
Speaker 1: of hilarious because it's both relatively low key and it's

722
00:35:06,239 --> 00:35:08,919
Speaker 1: just it's a reminder of how differently we think about

723
00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:11,439
Speaker 1: this kind of thing these days, because he's just he's

724
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:13,360
Speaker 1: just like, you know, hey, you want to help me

725
00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:16,200
Speaker 1: with my pelvic tilt, Like he keeps implying that they're

726
00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:18,719
Speaker 1: going to sleep together, and she's like, oh you te

727
00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:22,480
Speaker 1: he and that very you know, Simpson's model on the

728
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 1: car kind of very practiced at.

729
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:28,719
Speaker 3: Deferring the car. Oh you.

730
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:32,080
Speaker 1: It's implied that, of course, she deals with this kind

731
00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:34,239
Speaker 1: of thing all the time. Of course, all attractive women

732
00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:35,960
Speaker 1: deal with this kind of thing all the time, and

733
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:39,359
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's harmless and something that you just

734
00:35:39,440 --> 00:35:43,399
Speaker 1: sort of defer. And the contrast between that and how

735
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:47,640
Speaker 1: we feel about it today it's like seeing people using

736
00:35:47,760 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 1: giant rotary telephones in old movies. To me, it's just like,

737
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:55,720
Speaker 1: this is an interesting portrait of a different era. But anyway,

738
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:58,080
Speaker 1: all of that said, is Phil really so bad that

739
00:35:58,120 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 1: he needs like the entire karmic justice of the universe

740
00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:02,040
Speaker 1: to come down on him.

741
00:36:02,440 --> 00:36:05,879
Speaker 3: I mean, I think he needs humbling. You know, It's

742
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:10,360
Speaker 3: not that he is an actively bad person in so

743
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:16,040
Speaker 3: many ways, it's just that he never considers others before himself.

744
00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:21,080
Speaker 3: And you know, as far as a broad moral message

745
00:36:21,160 --> 00:36:24,239
Speaker 3: to apply to anything, you know, think of others before

746
00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:27,319
Speaker 3: yourself as pretty easy to you know, apply universally. So

747
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:30,320
Speaker 3: I think it's less about showing that he is an

748
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 3: actively bad man who actively causes harm in the world

749
00:36:35,040 --> 00:36:38,880
Speaker 3: as much as just showing that he is myopic and

750
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:42,239
Speaker 3: self centered and is that the worst thing you can be? No,

751
00:36:42,680 --> 00:36:46,040
Speaker 3: but within the story this film is telling, it's the

752
00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:48,840
Speaker 3: thing he needs to be in order to make the

753
00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:50,239
Speaker 3: point that the film wants to make.

754
00:36:50,680 --> 00:36:53,359
Speaker 2: There's this ten year period of American films that are

755
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:57,600
Speaker 2: basically about the US, not really, but like they're made

756
00:36:57,680 --> 00:37:00,239
Speaker 2: in a country that has won the Cold War and

757
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:03,880
Speaker 2: capitalism has solved everything and nothing will ever be Abat again.

758
00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:08,480
Speaker 2: And those movies are are just so occupied with the

759
00:37:08,520 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 2: idea of how like kind of jerky white guys can

760
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:16,040
Speaker 2: become better people or become more fully actualized people or whatever.

761
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:18,080
Speaker 2: And like, I don't think this movie is you know,

762
00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:20,719
Speaker 2: like American Beauty or anything. For one thing, it's a

763
00:37:20,800 --> 00:37:23,680
Speaker 2: much better movie. And for another, like American Beauty's central

764
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:26,279
Speaker 2: message is really noxious, but like it is on a

765
00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:29,600
Speaker 2: continuum with that movie in terms of like the idea

766
00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:32,120
Speaker 2: that the worst possible thing you could be is just

767
00:37:32,200 --> 00:37:35,200
Speaker 2: kind of like a mild asshole, you know, just just

768
00:37:35,239 --> 00:37:38,280
Speaker 2: like a jerk. In that's really where Bill Murray lived

769
00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:40,920
Speaker 2: across his career, was like just kind of a jerk.

770
00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:43,680
Speaker 2: But don't you love him for it? And I think

771
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:46,560
Speaker 2: that this is, you know, one of his best performances

772
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:50,680
Speaker 2: for the way he very accurately portrays someone who actually

773
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:54,480
Speaker 2: like lives that thing of becoming a better person. And

774
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:57,319
Speaker 2: he doesn't lose his essential Bill Murray. Noess like he

775
00:37:57,360 --> 00:38:00,879
Speaker 2: doesn't become Jim Carrey at the beginning of The Truman Show.

776
00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:04,280
Speaker 2: He is still himself. He's just the best version of himself.

777
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:06,839
Speaker 2: And I think that's really a fascinating idea.

778
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:09,800
Speaker 4: Doc Hollywood, I guess is another one too that's reminded

779
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:12,480
Speaker 4: me of Remember that one with Michael J. Fox kind

780
00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:16,359
Speaker 4: of crashing into this small town and learning to be uh,

781
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:18,440
Speaker 4: you know, less of a jerk. I think he's on

782
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:21,239
Speaker 4: his way to be a plastic surgeon somewhere, make a

783
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:23,600
Speaker 4: ton of money and uh and being being a small

784
00:38:23,719 --> 00:38:24,920
Speaker 4: town don't forget cars.

785
00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:27,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then the cars took it up again, except

786
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:27,479
Speaker 1: the time.

787
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:31,200
Speaker 4: Oh that's right, cars got Yeah.

788
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:33,120
Speaker 1: I haven't even thought about the degree to which there

789
00:38:33,239 --> 00:38:37,239
Speaker 1: is like an entire parallel subgenre that's this thing, but

790
00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 1: without the supernatural contrivemance, just mundane contrivance.

791
00:38:40,840 --> 00:38:44,560
Speaker 4: There's a huge tradition of movies going back decades where

792
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:47,240
Speaker 4: you know, small towns are always this kind of model

793
00:38:47,280 --> 00:38:49,959
Speaker 4: of virtue and decency, and then you know, you city

794
00:38:50,040 --> 00:38:53,439
Speaker 4: slickers end up spending some time out and the well,

795
00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:55,840
Speaker 4: like you know, even in a film like City Slickers,

796
00:38:56,400 --> 00:38:58,600
Speaker 4: they end up spending some time out of the in

797
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:01,560
Speaker 4: the sticks and they learn, you know, to be less jerky,

798
00:39:01,640 --> 00:39:05,960
Speaker 4: less more patient, more appreciative of the little things of

799
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:08,839
Speaker 4: small kindnesses and all those things that small towns are

800
00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 4: supposed to represent and I think, but again, I think

801
00:39:11,160 --> 00:39:14,759
Speaker 4: that idea has faded a bit. And then I think

802
00:39:14,760 --> 00:39:18,840
Speaker 4: we've seen just small towns themselves be victimized and be

803
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:23,520
Speaker 4: demolished by capitalism too, and so and so. You know,

804
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:27,279
Speaker 4: if you go on any road trip across America and

805
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:29,480
Speaker 4: get off the freeway and head into any one of

806
00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:33,960
Speaker 4: any town, and you'll see a much different picture than

807
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:36,360
Speaker 4: you'll get here of a town like punk Satani.

808
00:39:36,560 --> 00:39:38,319
Speaker 2: I was talking about this film as I was watching

809
00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:40,160
Speaker 2: it with some friends in a slack and one of

810
00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:43,200
Speaker 2: them lives just a short drive from the town where

811
00:39:43,239 --> 00:39:45,440
Speaker 2: this was filmed in Illinois, and she said, it's very

812
00:39:45,520 --> 00:39:47,400
Speaker 2: changed from what you see in the film, and beyond

813
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:49,640
Speaker 2: just like you know, of course things are different. It's

814
00:39:49,719 --> 00:39:53,200
Speaker 2: just a much emptier place now than this sort of

815
00:39:53,239 --> 00:39:55,919
Speaker 2: bustling town that's portrayed in the movie. Where like it's

816
00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:59,160
Speaker 2: pretty clear that like this town is still alive beyond

817
00:39:59,280 --> 00:40:01,799
Speaker 2: the fiction of the film, and now I guess it's

818
00:40:02,239 --> 00:40:04,160
Speaker 2: just very different. It's a sad thing, though.

819
00:40:04,239 --> 00:40:06,520
Speaker 1: It's sort of funny to me in a way that

820
00:40:07,160 --> 00:40:11,880
Speaker 1: this movie implies that Buck Satawani is vibrant and people

821
00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:15,839
Speaker 1: filled enough to support a full time insurance salesman. You know,

822
00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:19,040
Speaker 1: ned Ryerson seems to be making a good career for himself,

823
00:40:19,040 --> 00:40:21,640
Speaker 1: but like, how many people can you sell insurance? It

824
00:40:22,080 --> 00:40:24,040
Speaker 1: just doesn't seem like a small town kind of gig.

825
00:40:24,640 --> 00:40:27,560
Speaker 4: Certainly is my uncle, you know, he he's lived it,

826
00:40:27,560 --> 00:40:30,840
Speaker 4: lived his whole life in a small town outside of Flint, Michigan,

827
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:33,759
Speaker 4: and that was his job selling insurance. He did fine,

828
00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:35,319
Speaker 4: did find for himself with a job.

829
00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:38,160
Speaker 1: This film is far more realistic than I had ever realized.

830
00:40:39,160 --> 00:40:42,240
Speaker 3: Well, one of the aspects of its small town setting

831
00:40:42,280 --> 00:40:46,560
Speaker 3: that's interesting to me is it being a setting for romance,

832
00:40:47,040 --> 00:40:49,280
Speaker 3: and part of that also has to do with the

833
00:40:49,320 --> 00:40:52,759
Speaker 3: time of year at which you're seeing it. Like February

834
00:40:53,360 --> 00:40:58,399
Speaker 3: is probably the least romantic month, you know, Valentine's Day notwithstanding,

835
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:00,600
Speaker 3: but just in terms of like the they're in this

836
00:41:00,719 --> 00:41:03,719
Speaker 3: part of the country. It's gray, it's wet, there's no

837
00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:07,440
Speaker 3: you know, Groundhog Day is not a romantic holiday in

838
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:12,279
Speaker 3: any sense. And when we first enter the town at

839
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:14,560
Speaker 3: the beginning of the movie, we're kind of seeing it

840
00:41:14,560 --> 00:41:17,759
Speaker 3: through Phil's eyes and like, yes, it's lively, but it's

841
00:41:18,040 --> 00:41:20,880
Speaker 3: also just not I don't find it super appealing in

842
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:23,279
Speaker 3: the beginning of the film, and I feel like it's

843
00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:25,520
Speaker 3: like intentionally framed that way. It's just sort of like

844
00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:29,960
Speaker 3: gray and blah and just not inspiring. And as the

845
00:41:30,160 --> 00:41:34,240
Speaker 3: film progresses, and as Phil progresses, you know, we start

846
00:41:34,280 --> 00:41:39,520
Speaker 3: to see these more sort of traditional romantic scenes, you know,

847
00:41:39,600 --> 00:41:43,919
Speaker 3: the lit up gazebo and the snowfall and the town dance,

848
00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:46,360
Speaker 3: and it just becomes much more stars hollowey over the

849
00:41:47,400 --> 00:41:50,320
Speaker 3: course of the film, and I think I would guess

850
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:53,200
Speaker 3: that that is intentional as sort of a reflection of

851
00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:55,000
Speaker 3: Phil's experience with the town.

852
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:58,400
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so among the things that you might not

853
00:41:58,600 --> 00:42:00,399
Speaker 1: have in a small town, all right, maybe you've got

854
00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:03,120
Speaker 1: insurance salesman in a small town. One of the things

855
00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:07,480
Speaker 1: that surprised me most about this this revisitation was I

856
00:42:07,480 --> 00:42:10,640
Speaker 1: had completely forgotten about the side plot with the homeless

857
00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:14,719
Speaker 1: guy who dies in the alley. That was when I

858
00:42:14,800 --> 00:42:18,520
Speaker 1: was watching this film for this particular edition of the podcast,

859
00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:22,080
Speaker 1: I did not have a Christmas Carol in mind at all,

860
00:42:22,560 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 1: and that was the sequence that suddenly made me realize

861
00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:29,560
Speaker 1: that this is the Christmas Carol story. Because this movie

862
00:42:29,640 --> 00:42:33,480
Speaker 1: does get very dark in places like there's a suicide montage,

863
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:36,759
Speaker 1: and there's a great deal of talk about despair and suicide,

864
00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:39,400
Speaker 1: but all of that is played kind of lightly because

865
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 1: it has no consequences. The death of the old man

866
00:42:43,080 --> 00:42:45,920
Speaker 1: and the way it's treated, just the repeated statements like

867
00:42:45,960 --> 00:42:48,920
Speaker 1: people get old, people die, like the fact that he

868
00:42:49,719 --> 00:42:52,279
Speaker 1: does various things for that old man, but ultimately he

869
00:42:52,360 --> 00:42:55,600
Speaker 1: can't save him and he disappears from the loop. The

870
00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:59,239
Speaker 1: like sitting him down for a meal or otherwise helping

871
00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:01,600
Speaker 1: him does not become part of the perfect day, doesn't

872
00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:04,200
Speaker 1: become part of the loop, and you know, we can

873
00:43:04,280 --> 00:43:07,799
Speaker 1: surmise that it's still in there, but ultimately this is

874
00:43:08,200 --> 00:43:10,440
Speaker 1: something that he can't help. You know, this is his

875
00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:14,799
Speaker 1: low point, his scrooge realizing that the tiny tim is

876
00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:18,920
Speaker 1: dead moment. And it's not out of sync with the

877
00:43:18,920 --> 00:43:20,560
Speaker 1: rest of the film. It's not an impossible part of

878
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:23,480
Speaker 1: the rest of the film, but it does feel dark

879
00:43:23,520 --> 00:43:25,120
Speaker 1: and grim in a way none of the rest of

880
00:43:25,160 --> 00:43:30,640
Speaker 1: it does, because this is it's outside the ability of

881
00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:34,400
Speaker 1: the loop or of karma or of God or whatever's

882
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:36,960
Speaker 1: going on in this world to fix. There is not

883
00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:39,439
Speaker 1: a solution that he can come across in one day

884
00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 1: that's going to fix the life choices or life accidents

885
00:43:43,600 --> 00:43:46,479
Speaker 1: or whatever has befallen this particular man, and it can't

886
00:43:46,480 --> 00:43:49,520
Speaker 1: fix old age. So I'm just I'm wondering how you

887
00:43:49,520 --> 00:43:52,680
Speaker 1: guys processed in that particular plot point and kind of

888
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:53,839
Speaker 1: what the movie is saying about it.

889
00:43:54,280 --> 00:43:57,120
Speaker 2: I think the central idea of any religion, if we're

890
00:43:57,120 --> 00:44:00,440
Speaker 2: talking about this as a religious parable, is like trying

891
00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:03,160
Speaker 2: to better one's life so that one can have a

892
00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:06,479
Speaker 2: better death, whether that's dying in a way that means

893
00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:09,319
Speaker 2: your life was fulfilling, or dying in a way that

894
00:44:09,440 --> 00:44:11,280
Speaker 2: will get you a better life the next time around,

895
00:44:11,320 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 2: or dying in a way that gets you to some

896
00:44:12,840 --> 00:44:16,279
Speaker 2: better corner of the afterlife. Like that's one of the

897
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:21,280
Speaker 2: central ideas behind religion. And because death really doesn't exist

898
00:44:21,360 --> 00:44:24,879
Speaker 2: within this film like it becomes, it could be rather

899
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:28,839
Speaker 2: weightless without the idea of here is a character who

900
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:30,920
Speaker 2: is always going to die and there's nothing you can

901
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:34,960
Speaker 2: do to save him because death still exists to some degree,

902
00:44:35,040 --> 00:44:37,279
Speaker 2: and without that element, I think the movie would be

903
00:44:37,320 --> 00:44:42,520
Speaker 2: a little too lightweight, and like the actual goodness that

904
00:44:42,680 --> 00:44:47,920
Speaker 2: Phil accomplishes wouldn't feel important, because goodness always has to

905
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 2: take place in the face of death. If you're just

906
00:44:50,040 --> 00:44:53,480
Speaker 2: becoming a better person in a space where you can't die,

907
00:44:53,520 --> 00:44:55,879
Speaker 2: you can't be hurt, really, all of these things can't

908
00:44:55,920 --> 00:44:59,120
Speaker 2: really happen, then you are living in a world that

909
00:44:59,280 --> 00:45:01,560
Speaker 2: is a fantasy. But as long as death is present,

910
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:05,120
Speaker 2: then there are consequences, there are dramatic stakes, there are

911
00:45:05,239 --> 00:45:08,920
Speaker 2: things that cannot be defeated ultimately. And I do think

912
00:45:08,960 --> 00:45:11,480
Speaker 2: it's a really key part of why this movie works

913
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:11,759
Speaker 2: for me.

914
00:45:12,400 --> 00:45:16,640
Speaker 4: If Phil is there to learn about the fullness of life,

915
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:20,560
Speaker 4: then the reality of death has to be there. I think.

916
00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:24,120
Speaker 4: I think that's good, and I'm glad it's present in

917
00:45:24,160 --> 00:45:26,759
Speaker 4: the movie. I mean, I'm pleased for other instances where

918
00:45:26,760 --> 00:45:30,239
Speaker 4: the film you acknowledges death, though, does it more, you know,

919
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:32,839
Speaker 4: in a comic way, I guess in his series of

920
00:45:33,640 --> 00:45:36,399
Speaker 4: suicide attempts. But I was happy it was there. It's

921
00:45:36,440 --> 00:45:39,840
Speaker 4: such a touching little thread, and it's just another example

922
00:45:39,880 --> 00:45:45,480
Speaker 4: of the premise of the film paying off so uniquely

923
00:45:45,520 --> 00:45:49,080
Speaker 4: that you could have just this one tiny thread, this

924
00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:51,880
Speaker 4: one part of the loop. You could focus on it

925
00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:54,400
Speaker 4: for a little bit and have this almost like short

926
00:45:54,480 --> 00:45:57,960
Speaker 4: story that's spun off from the main narrative.

927
00:45:58,280 --> 00:46:00,640
Speaker 3: I think the stuff with the h this guy is

928
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:06,280
Speaker 3: also just important in terms of Fill's growth, in terms

929
00:46:06,440 --> 00:46:09,920
Speaker 3: of making apparent to him that he is not a god,

930
00:46:10,239 --> 00:46:13,040
Speaker 3: because that is something that he says early, early on

931
00:46:13,200 --> 00:46:15,840
Speaker 3: in his looping, you know, And I think even is

932
00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:17,640
Speaker 3: it before the looping when he's talking about being a

933
00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:21,719
Speaker 3: weather man, And maybe I'm confusing the timeline there, but

934
00:46:22,040 --> 00:46:26,439
Speaker 3: in the situation he's in, he's realizing, you know, the

935
00:46:26,600 --> 00:46:31,480
Speaker 3: extreme power he has to do things without consequence and

936
00:46:32,320 --> 00:46:35,160
Speaker 3: to kind of bend reality reality to his will, if

937
00:46:35,200 --> 00:46:40,640
Speaker 3: only temporarily. And so I think giving him this really

938
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:44,359
Speaker 3: sort of intense roadblock to that perception of him as

939
00:46:44,360 --> 00:46:49,200
Speaker 3: a supernatural being or a god is important in terms

940
00:46:49,239 --> 00:46:52,640
Speaker 3: of the humbling that he endures throughout the film.

941
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:55,439
Speaker 1: Well, we're running along, as is so often the case,

942
00:46:55,520 --> 00:46:58,080
Speaker 1: but we really can't wrap up without talking at least

943
00:46:58,160 --> 00:47:00,720
Speaker 1: a little bit about the cast here. We've talked about Murray,

944
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:03,439
Speaker 1: but we haven't really touched on Andy McDowell at all.

945
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:08,400
Speaker 1: And there's so many familiar faces in this that is

946
00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:10,640
Speaker 1: just kind of amazing to see pop up. It took

947
00:47:10,680 --> 00:47:13,520
Speaker 1: me a little while to recognize Ramus himself as the

948
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:18,839
Speaker 1: neurologist that decides film needs to see a psychologist. And

949
00:47:19,920 --> 00:47:22,640
Speaker 1: it definitely took me a while to recognize Michael Shannon

950
00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:24,920
Speaker 1: in his very small role, but then I just went

951
00:47:24,960 --> 00:47:26,160
Speaker 1: back and watched it over and over.

952
00:47:26,200 --> 00:47:26,520
Speaker 3: It is.

953
00:47:26,600 --> 00:47:29,440
Speaker 1: It is delightful to see him so larval and to

954
00:47:29,480 --> 00:47:33,680
Speaker 1: see him doing like such an an upbeat and peppy,

955
00:47:34,080 --> 00:47:36,960
Speaker 1: giddy character. Given that he's kind of gone into a

956
00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:41,360
Speaker 1: place where he specializes in these like very dour, serious roles,

957
00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:43,520
Speaker 1: it's so much fun to see him like like jumping

958
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:46,560
Speaker 1: up and down and screaming, and it kind of like

959
00:47:46,640 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 1: lays out an entirely different career that he might have

960
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:53,600
Speaker 1: had any comments on any of the additional players in

961
00:47:53,640 --> 00:47:54,239
Speaker 1: the film.

962
00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:56,680
Speaker 2: First of all, I have always had in the back

963
00:47:56,719 --> 00:47:59,480
Speaker 2: of my brain that Michael Shannon has within him at

964
00:47:59,560 --> 00:48:02,960
Speaker 2: least one great sitcom dad role, like he could play

965
00:48:03,120 --> 00:48:06,240
Speaker 2: a sitcom dad and that tension kind of Brian Cranston

966
00:48:06,360 --> 00:48:09,520
Speaker 2: tension between like this darkness but also like being bubbly.

967
00:48:09,640 --> 00:48:12,000
Speaker 2: I think Michael Shannon would kill it. I want to

968
00:48:12,040 --> 00:48:16,640
Speaker 2: see it happen. I love Steven Tobolowski in this movie.

969
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:21,360
Speaker 2: I think he finds so many variations on annoying guy

970
00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:24,279
Speaker 2: who thinks you should like be his best friend, and

971
00:48:24,320 --> 00:48:27,200
Speaker 2: you never you never hate him. You're just kind of like, yeah,

972
00:48:27,239 --> 00:48:29,719
Speaker 2: I know this guy, and I'm very irritated by him.

973
00:48:30,000 --> 00:48:33,239
Speaker 2: But there's something so open and nakedly emotional about him

974
00:48:33,239 --> 00:48:35,480
Speaker 2: that like, I just you know, I love ned. I'd

975
00:48:35,520 --> 00:48:36,160
Speaker 2: give him a hug.

976
00:48:36,800 --> 00:48:39,960
Speaker 1: You would regret that hug, you know you would. No, Yeah,

977
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:42,239
Speaker 1: I've read of that hug owing him one hundreds of

978
00:48:42,320 --> 00:48:43,480
Speaker 1: dollars a month in insurance.

979
00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:47,680
Speaker 3: It's always nice to see Brian Doyle Murray doing his

980
00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:52,239
Speaker 3: thing alongside alongside Bill. But you know, Andy McDowell in

981
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:55,960
Speaker 3: this movie, it's not the most rewarding role for her,

982
00:48:56,320 --> 00:48:59,600
Speaker 3: and I think she does a nice job with it,

983
00:49:00,120 --> 00:49:03,200
Speaker 3: giving a little bit of shading Terita. So she's not

984
00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:07,880
Speaker 3: just this kind of pure ball of sweetness and goodness

985
00:49:07,960 --> 00:49:11,160
Speaker 3: for Phil to kind of crash up against until he

986
00:49:11,239 --> 00:49:13,600
Speaker 3: absorbs some of it for himself. Like you know, she

987
00:49:13,680 --> 00:49:16,640
Speaker 3: does have a little bit of you know, snark, a

988
00:49:16,640 --> 00:49:19,640
Speaker 3: little bit of you know, she pushes back against him

989
00:49:19,719 --> 00:49:24,120
Speaker 3: in her kind of sweet way, But it does feel

990
00:49:24,120 --> 00:49:26,920
Speaker 3: like she, as both a character and a performance, is

991
00:49:27,040 --> 00:49:30,680
Speaker 3: just overshadowed by so much here, and that bumps me

992
00:49:30,680 --> 00:49:33,359
Speaker 3: out because I like Andy McDowell, but she feels like

993
00:49:33,640 --> 00:49:35,799
Speaker 3: her her performance and the character just feel a little

994
00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:39,440
Speaker 3: functional in this movie. That is maybe my only real

995
00:49:39,520 --> 00:49:42,880
Speaker 3: critique of it, and it's not really on her, I

996
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:43,440
Speaker 3: don't think.

997
00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:46,000
Speaker 1: But yeah, I agree with you, and I think I

998
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:48,399
Speaker 1: would go further. I feel like the romance is the

999
00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:51,600
Speaker 1: only aspect of this film that doesn't really fully work

1000
00:49:51,640 --> 00:49:51,880
Speaker 1: for me.

1001
00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:55,520
Speaker 3: I can never get behind Bill Murray as a romantic lead,

1002
00:49:55,560 --> 00:49:58,040
Speaker 3: like even lost in translation. I'm sorry, like like, I

1003
00:49:58,080 --> 00:50:00,879
Speaker 3: know that that's harrisy or whatever, but like I Bill

1004
00:50:00,960 --> 00:50:03,840
Speaker 3: murray romance has never worked for me on film, and

1005
00:50:03,880 --> 00:50:05,880
Speaker 3: it doesn't work here, So I place the blame for

1006
00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:09,360
Speaker 3: that more on him here than her. But continue with

1007
00:50:09,400 --> 00:50:11,680
Speaker 3: what you're gonna say, Tasha.

1008
00:50:12,040 --> 00:50:13,080
Speaker 2: I think about it.

1009
00:50:13,120 --> 00:50:14,160
Speaker 4: I think about it.

1010
00:50:14,200 --> 00:50:16,640
Speaker 2: I think about Bill Murray.

1011
00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:20,480
Speaker 1: Think his whole brand, though, has pretty much always been

1012
00:50:20,880 --> 00:50:24,920
Speaker 1: kind of performative insincerity and being a little bored with

1013
00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:27,319
Speaker 1: the world, and I would think that would be devastating

1014
00:50:27,320 --> 00:50:29,600
Speaker 1: in the sack. I just I don't think it would

1015
00:50:29,640 --> 00:50:33,239
Speaker 1: be possible to ever really fully get his attention, and

1016
00:50:33,320 --> 00:50:36,759
Speaker 1: I think he plays reasonably charming here, like when he's

1017
00:50:36,800 --> 00:50:41,200
Speaker 1: talking to Andy mcgul as she's sleeping and he's talking

1018
00:50:41,200 --> 00:50:43,080
Speaker 1: about like how the second he saw her he wanted

1019
00:50:43,080 --> 00:50:46,160
Speaker 1: to take her in his arms. It's very romantic in

1020
00:50:46,200 --> 00:50:50,200
Speaker 1: a cinematic monologue kind of way. It's a little hard

1021
00:50:50,239 --> 00:50:53,520
Speaker 1: to believe based on who he was when he first

1022
00:50:53,600 --> 00:50:56,760
Speaker 1: met her and just based on who she is, which

1023
00:50:56,920 --> 00:50:59,080
Speaker 1: to my mind is just kind of bland. I mean,

1024
00:50:59,160 --> 00:51:02,800
Speaker 1: the screenplay keeps draping these things over her, like she's

1025
00:51:02,840 --> 00:51:06,800
Speaker 1: she's into French poetry, you know, she's she wants to

1026
00:51:06,840 --> 00:51:09,759
Speaker 1: travel the world, like she has all of these tick

1027
00:51:09,880 --> 00:51:12,160
Speaker 1: marks of I have a personality and I'm a person

1028
00:51:12,400 --> 00:51:15,040
Speaker 1: kind of thing that get name checked. But I mean,

1029
00:51:15,120 --> 00:51:17,960
Speaker 1: ultimately she's here is like a nice prize for him

1030
00:51:17,960 --> 00:51:22,200
Speaker 1: to win by performing karmicley, and I like, I just

1031
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:25,880
Speaker 1: I've never really found her that exciting or interesting as

1032
00:51:25,880 --> 00:51:26,360
Speaker 1: a character.

1033
00:51:26,560 --> 00:51:29,279
Speaker 4: Annie McDowell to me during this period is it's kind

1034
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:32,080
Speaker 4: of like the actual equivalent like to like Joe Biden,

1035
00:51:32,200 --> 00:51:34,480
Speaker 4: basically in the sense that like it was sense likely,

1036
00:51:34,520 --> 00:51:37,120
Speaker 4: like you just want her to get through a performance

1037
00:51:37,120 --> 00:51:41,319
Speaker 4: without any gaffs, right and so and so she gets

1038
00:51:41,400 --> 00:51:45,759
Speaker 4: through this performance without any of the gaffs that occasionally

1039
00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:50,239
Speaker 4: come in, like you know, shortcuts and in UH in

1040
00:51:50,360 --> 00:51:52,200
Speaker 4: Sex Size the Video Tape. But she's great in and

1041
00:51:52,239 --> 00:51:55,640
Speaker 4: in UH four Weddings and a Funeral. There's always one

1042
00:51:55,680 --> 00:51:58,080
Speaker 4: moment in those movies where it's like, oh boy, that's

1043
00:51:58,080 --> 00:52:00,960
Speaker 4: a you know, she's very, very likable, like Joe Biden,

1044
00:52:01,080 --> 00:52:06,720
Speaker 4: also daft prone, so any case, Yeah, she's sexy Joe Biden.

1045
00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:09,800
Speaker 3: Wow.

1046
00:52:09,960 --> 00:52:12,399
Speaker 1: I can't think of a better leave line for this

1047
00:52:12,480 --> 00:52:17,959
Speaker 1: episode than Andy mcdallas sexy Joe Biden. I'm just gonna say,

1048
00:52:18,400 --> 00:52:20,799
Speaker 1: we're going to be back in the second half of

1049
00:52:20,840 --> 00:52:25,000
Speaker 1: this episode talking about Krista Miliotti in Palm Springs and

1050
00:52:25,200 --> 00:52:27,520
Speaker 1: how these two movies compare, and I think that ends

1051
00:52:27,560 --> 00:52:30,600
Speaker 1: up being one of the elements that most distinguishes these

1052
00:52:30,600 --> 00:52:32,919
Speaker 1: two movies from each other. But that's all a little

1053
00:52:32,960 --> 00:52:35,120
Speaker 1: down the road for the moment, we're going to wrap

1054
00:52:35,200 --> 00:52:38,040
Speaker 1: up our discussion of Groundhog Day and get into some feedback.

1055
00:52:48,680 --> 00:52:48,839
Speaker 3: Now.

1056
00:52:48,840 --> 00:52:50,799
Speaker 1: It's time for feedback, when our listeners weigh in with

1057
00:52:50,840 --> 00:52:53,320
Speaker 1: their responses to recent episodes and anything else in the

1058
00:52:53,360 --> 00:52:56,080
Speaker 1: world of film. Here's an important one from Jerome, who

1059
00:52:56,080 --> 00:52:58,680
Speaker 1: says he's a secondary school film studies teacher in the UK,

1060
00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:01,680
Speaker 1: and then he recommends our podcasts to his students as

1061
00:53:01,680 --> 00:53:04,239
Speaker 1: an example of how to have a meaningful discussion while

1062
00:53:04,320 --> 00:53:07,839
Speaker 1: disagreeing with each other. Respectfully. Thank you, Jerome, we appreciate it.

1063
00:53:08,160 --> 00:53:10,520
Speaker 1: But he also has a question for us, Emily, would

1064
00:53:10,520 --> 00:53:11,520
Speaker 1: do you read this one for us?

1065
00:53:12,040 --> 00:53:12,320
Speaker 4: Sure?

1066
00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:16,399
Speaker 2: Jerome writes, I have noticed that little airtime in your

1067
00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:20,440
Speaker 2: discussions is given to issues of representation. Often there might

1068
00:53:20,440 --> 00:53:22,880
Speaker 2: be a mention of a poorly written female character or

1069
00:53:22,880 --> 00:53:25,440
Speaker 2: the absence of any people of color, but most of

1070
00:53:25,480 --> 00:53:28,920
Speaker 2: the time these points are left unpacked. The recent increased

1071
00:53:28,960 --> 00:53:32,680
Speaker 2: awareness of black and trans writes has reinforced how important

1072
00:53:32,680 --> 00:53:35,400
Speaker 2: it is to interrogate art for the way it represents

1073
00:53:35,400 --> 00:53:39,080
Speaker 2: minority groups. Film academia has long done this, but I've

1074
00:53:39,080 --> 00:53:43,719
Speaker 2: noticed these conversations moving more and more into mainstream audience responses.

1075
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:47,040
Speaker 2: Film critics could really help promote these issues, but it

1076
00:53:47,160 --> 00:53:49,279
Speaker 2: just doesn't seem to be a priority in the way

1077
00:53:49,280 --> 00:53:52,000
Speaker 2: that many critics tend to respond to film. I would

1078
00:53:52,040 --> 00:53:54,719
Speaker 2: be interested in your comments. What role does matter of

1079
00:53:54,760 --> 00:53:58,080
Speaker 2: representation play in a film critics response to a film?

1080
00:53:58,360 --> 00:54:01,040
Speaker 2: And how personally do you respiet onto the challenge of

1081
00:54:01,080 --> 00:54:02,959
Speaker 2: taking more notice of representation.

1082
00:54:03,480 --> 00:54:05,680
Speaker 4: Well, we do. I guess we didn't really point out

1083
00:54:05,719 --> 00:54:09,799
Speaker 4: any representation issues in Groundhog Dated. Ways very's very it's

1084
00:54:09,840 --> 00:54:10,239
Speaker 4: a very way.

1085
00:54:11,239 --> 00:54:13,680
Speaker 3: I mean you did. You did point out the poorly

1086
00:54:13,680 --> 00:54:16,799
Speaker 3: written female character, you know, so we always gotta gotta

1087
00:54:16,880 --> 00:54:17,239
Speaker 3: do that.

1088
00:54:17,640 --> 00:54:20,920
Speaker 1: Well, I'll say this, I mean Jerome specifically takes us

1089
00:54:20,920 --> 00:54:25,400
Speaker 1: a tesk for not unpacking representational lacks more And sometimes

1090
00:54:25,440 --> 00:54:28,760
Speaker 1: there's just not a lot to unpack. If a film

1091
00:54:29,239 --> 00:54:33,400
Speaker 1: does bring in a minority group character and does it

1092
00:54:33,440 --> 00:54:38,040
Speaker 1: poorly or stereotypically, there's something to unpack there. If we're

1093
00:54:38,080 --> 00:54:39,520
Speaker 1: going to talk about the Old Guard on one of

1094
00:54:39,520 --> 00:54:42,279
Speaker 1: our Patreon episodes, there's a ton to unpack there in

1095
00:54:42,360 --> 00:54:46,120
Speaker 1: terms of what's included and how those characters are represented

1096
00:54:46,520 --> 00:54:49,560
Speaker 1: and what the director, Gina Prince Bythewood wanted to do

1097
00:54:49,680 --> 00:54:52,439
Speaker 1: with them that was different than how she had seen

1098
00:54:52,480 --> 00:54:55,200
Speaker 1: specifically black characters used in other film. There's a lot

1099
00:54:55,200 --> 00:54:58,560
Speaker 1: to unpack there. There's nothing to unpack in Groundhog Day.

1100
00:54:58,640 --> 00:55:01,440
Speaker 1: There's just an absence. And we can certainly talk about

1101
00:55:01,440 --> 00:55:05,560
Speaker 1: the fact that the small town in Pennsylvania in the

1102
00:55:05,600 --> 00:55:10,080
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties pretty much has virtually no characters of color.

1103
00:55:10,400 --> 00:55:14,560
Speaker 1: But once you've made that statement, it starts to sound predictable.

1104
00:55:14,719 --> 00:55:16,680
Speaker 1: You know, the eighties were not just as they were

1105
00:55:16,719 --> 00:55:20,120
Speaker 1: not a great time for the inner lives of women

1106
00:55:20,200 --> 00:55:23,400
Speaker 1: on film or for female comedians. As we kind of

1107
00:55:23,560 --> 00:55:27,040
Speaker 1: noted earlier, they weren't a good time for gab representation,

1108
00:55:27,360 --> 00:55:31,680
Speaker 1: or people of color representation, or trans representation. And there's

1109
00:55:31,719 --> 00:55:33,839
Speaker 1: not much that we can say about that that isn't

1110
00:55:33,840 --> 00:55:36,440
Speaker 1: already very well known. We can certainly point out in

1111
00:55:36,520 --> 00:55:39,040
Speaker 1: every film that we cover and once again, we have

1112
00:55:39,080 --> 00:55:40,120
Speaker 1: no people of color.

1113
00:55:39,840 --> 00:55:40,359
Speaker 3: In this movie.

1114
00:55:40,880 --> 00:55:42,920
Speaker 1: But it's just the same thing over and over. I

1115
00:55:42,960 --> 00:55:46,359
Speaker 1: think it's mostly something you want to discuss when there's

1116
00:55:46,360 --> 00:55:47,439
Speaker 1: something egregious.

1117
00:55:47,520 --> 00:55:47,719
Speaker 2: You know.

1118
00:55:47,760 --> 00:55:50,360
Speaker 1: We did spend a little time talking about the trans

1119
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:53,080
Speaker 1: character at the end of Mighty Wind because it was

1120
00:55:53,520 --> 00:55:58,160
Speaker 1: such an awkward thing treated as a gag. But in

1121
00:55:58,280 --> 00:56:00,880
Speaker 1: cases where there just is no care character of a

1122
00:56:00,920 --> 00:56:03,600
Speaker 1: minority in the film, I'm not sure what we can

1123
00:56:03,880 --> 00:56:04,880
Speaker 1: say that's meaningful.

1124
00:56:05,080 --> 00:56:07,960
Speaker 2: Wait, there was a movie where a trans character's existence

1125
00:56:08,040 --> 00:56:13,920
Speaker 2: was treated as an awkward gay Yeah, I can't believe

1126
00:56:13,960 --> 00:56:17,040
Speaker 2: that the President did intervening to say that was illegal.

1127
00:56:17,560 --> 00:56:21,520
Speaker 3: I did also suggest everyone watched Disclosure after that episodees

1128
00:56:22,160 --> 00:56:24,400
Speaker 3: on Netflix, so you know, there's.

1129
00:56:24,200 --> 00:56:26,640
Speaker 4: Your Michael Douglas.

1130
00:56:27,360 --> 00:56:30,080
Speaker 3: No, Scott No, That's the only.

1131
00:56:33,640 --> 00:56:36,440
Speaker 2: I had watching this movie. And as we were discussing it,

1132
00:56:36,480 --> 00:56:38,440
Speaker 2: I was like, well, should I mention that Groundhog Day

1133
00:56:38,480 --> 00:56:41,719
Speaker 2: takes place in a very you know, cis heteronormative universe.

1134
00:56:42,600 --> 00:56:45,680
Speaker 2: And then I was like, no, because that's nineteen ninety

1135
00:56:45,680 --> 00:56:49,280
Speaker 2: three Hollywood. Like I don't as as as a trans woman,

1136
00:56:49,440 --> 00:56:53,279
Speaker 2: I don't like necessarily think that's great, but also like

1137
00:56:53,360 --> 00:56:55,440
Speaker 2: it was made within the system it was made in,

1138
00:56:55,600 --> 00:56:59,160
Speaker 2: and like if it had included one gay couple, you know,

1139
00:56:59,200 --> 00:57:01,280
Speaker 2: it would not have been seen as quote unquote family

1140
00:57:01,320 --> 00:57:04,000
Speaker 2: friendly at the time. Like now, if you make a

1141
00:57:04,040 --> 00:57:06,399
Speaker 2: movie like this, you want to have, you know, some

1142
00:57:06,440 --> 00:57:09,400
Speaker 2: sort of queer representation, you probably want to have people

1143
00:57:09,400 --> 00:57:11,200
Speaker 2: of color in there, and we'll talk about how Palm

1144
00:57:11,239 --> 00:57:14,720
Speaker 2: Springs deals with all of that. But in nineteen ninety

1145
00:57:14,719 --> 00:57:19,800
Speaker 2: three Hollywood, these sorts of movies were not including those elements,

1146
00:57:19,880 --> 00:57:21,840
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of problems with that, and there

1147
00:57:21,880 --> 00:57:26,760
Speaker 2: are a lot of unexamined biases and you know, ways

1148
00:57:26,800 --> 00:57:30,640
Speaker 2: that the world tilts structural problems that the world is

1149
00:57:30,680 --> 00:57:33,479
Speaker 2: built atop, and particularly the United States and the film

1150
00:57:33,520 --> 00:57:36,760
Speaker 2: industry are built a top. But at a certain point

1151
00:57:37,000 --> 00:57:39,560
Speaker 2: talking about them within Groundhog Day is just, you know,

1152
00:57:39,680 --> 00:57:41,480
Speaker 2: not it's going to be all we talk about, and

1153
00:57:41,520 --> 00:57:43,960
Speaker 2: it's going to apply to every movie made at that time.

1154
00:57:44,400 --> 00:57:47,000
Speaker 2: And the other thing I would say is I certainly

1155
00:57:47,000 --> 00:57:51,360
Speaker 2: feel comfortable discussing representation of women on screen, representation of

1156
00:57:51,760 --> 00:57:55,400
Speaker 2: trans people on screen. I don't always feel comfortable talking

1157
00:57:55,400 --> 00:57:58,480
Speaker 2: about representation of people of color. As an extremely white person,

1158
00:57:58,560 --> 00:58:01,360
Speaker 2: I can say it doesn't exist and it should exist,

1159
00:58:01,800 --> 00:58:03,840
Speaker 2: but it's hard for me. I don't want to wade

1160
00:58:03,880 --> 00:58:05,840
Speaker 2: into something and be like, well, this is a great

1161
00:58:05,840 --> 00:58:10,160
Speaker 2: portrayal of X, you know, American community when I have

1162
00:58:10,240 --> 00:58:12,360
Speaker 2: no idea, that can be just as offensive in the

1163
00:58:12,440 --> 00:58:15,960
Speaker 2: end as saying nothing. And I think as professional critics

1164
00:58:15,960 --> 00:58:18,840
Speaker 2: we've all figured out where our lines are. But this

1165
00:58:18,920 --> 00:58:21,240
Speaker 2: is in particular an issue I think it's worth pointing

1166
00:58:21,280 --> 00:58:25,600
Speaker 2: to without necessarily always delving into it, because as white

1167
00:58:25,640 --> 00:58:27,200
Speaker 2: Americans we can struggle with that.

1168
00:58:27,800 --> 00:58:29,840
Speaker 1: Scott, I just I do actually want to call you

1169
00:58:29,880 --> 00:58:33,240
Speaker 1: out on this just a little bit. Even leaving aside

1170
00:58:33,600 --> 00:58:38,360
Speaker 1: the issues of gay or trans or people of color, characters.

1171
00:58:38,920 --> 00:58:41,440
Speaker 1: We spend a lot of time on this podcast dissecting

1172
00:58:41,560 --> 00:58:45,400
Speaker 1: women's roles. You know, Jenevie and I, we're pretty tuned

1173
00:58:45,480 --> 00:58:48,520
Speaker 1: into the many, many ways American cinema disappoints us in

1174
00:58:48,640 --> 00:58:52,520
Speaker 1: terms of female roles, And do you have that same

1175
00:58:52,600 --> 00:58:56,160
Speaker 1: sense of as a critic, it's harder for you to

1176
00:58:56,200 --> 00:58:59,000
Speaker 1: feel comfortable talking about that in the same way it

1177
00:58:59,040 --> 00:59:01,479
Speaker 1: may be uncomfortable, well for some of us very white

1178
00:59:01,480 --> 00:59:05,480
Speaker 1: folks to talk about whether a given portrayal of a

1179
00:59:05,520 --> 00:59:10,120
Speaker 1: black character feels real or authentic, or meaningful or important.

1180
00:59:10,760 --> 00:59:14,439
Speaker 1: How I feel about women's roles, About talking that way

1181
00:59:14,480 --> 00:59:17,720
Speaker 1: about women's roles, specifically about the representational aspects of them.

1182
00:59:18,000 --> 00:59:18,440
Speaker 4: I don't know.

1183
00:59:18,560 --> 00:59:22,680
Speaker 3: I mean, you just let us do the talking, just

1184
00:59:22,680 --> 00:59:24,320
Speaker 3: sit there and take it like a man.

1185
00:59:24,600 --> 00:59:29,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I do. I don't know. I mean, gosh,

1186
00:59:29,000 --> 00:59:32,320
Speaker 4: I don't know. I mean, I experienced the world from

1187
00:59:32,880 --> 00:59:36,000
Speaker 4: my you know, my perspective whatever that you know, this

1188
00:59:36,720 --> 00:59:39,960
Speaker 4: white dude, and then I try to empathize with the

1189
00:59:40,000 --> 00:59:43,400
Speaker 4: perspective of others. I mean, that's about as the best

1190
00:59:43,440 --> 00:59:46,200
Speaker 4: I can do. I don't know personally what it's like

1191
00:59:46,280 --> 00:59:49,160
Speaker 4: to be anything other than the type of person that

1192
00:59:49,240 --> 00:59:49,960
Speaker 4: I am right.

1193
00:59:50,080 --> 00:59:52,320
Speaker 1: Right, but I mean the whole point of cinema, I

1194
00:59:52,360 --> 00:59:54,840
Speaker 1: mean kind of like famously, according to Roder, sure is

1195
00:59:55,200 --> 00:59:57,920
Speaker 1: an empathy machine, like inviting you into all of these

1196
00:59:57,920 --> 01:00:01,200
Speaker 1: other perspectives. Yes, and you have to talk about that

1197
01:00:01,240 --> 01:00:02,480
Speaker 1: as a critical Yes.

1198
01:00:02,600 --> 01:00:06,400
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think don't Yeah, I feel fine about it,

1199
01:00:06,440 --> 01:00:06,880
Speaker 4: do I do?

1200
01:00:07,000 --> 01:00:10,720
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, if you feel so fine about it, why

1201
01:00:10,720 --> 01:00:11,320
Speaker 1: are you looking for it?

1202
01:00:11,400 --> 01:00:11,880
Speaker 3: No, I don't know.

1203
01:00:11,920 --> 01:00:12,840
Speaker 4: I don't know. It's hard.

1204
01:00:13,520 --> 01:00:17,560
Speaker 3: The Mash discussion, always.

1205
01:00:17,280 --> 01:00:19,800
Speaker 4: Thinking the discussion. That's true.

1206
01:00:19,960 --> 01:00:22,040
Speaker 1: I will tell you on Letterbox I have a review

1207
01:00:22,080 --> 01:00:25,200
Speaker 1: of Mash that touches a little on the conversation we

1208
01:00:25,280 --> 01:00:27,920
Speaker 1: had in that episode. And I still it's been so

1209
01:00:28,080 --> 01:00:31,000
Speaker 1: long and I still occasionally out of the blue get

1210
01:00:31,280 --> 01:00:32,800
Speaker 1: shut up a bitch style?

1211
01:00:33,040 --> 01:00:34,600
Speaker 4: What comments on that?

1212
01:00:34,760 --> 01:00:38,000
Speaker 1: No, just just basically like like angry sex based on.

1213
01:00:37,960 --> 01:00:39,680
Speaker 4: Our podcast, or just based on what you wrote on

1214
01:00:39,720 --> 01:00:41,240
Speaker 4: the letter box, based on.

1215
01:00:41,200 --> 01:00:42,800
Speaker 1: I wrote what I read the letter box, which was

1216
01:00:43,080 --> 01:00:45,439
Speaker 1: very tame compared to some of the things I said

1217
01:00:45,440 --> 01:00:46,560
Speaker 1: on that podcast episode.

1218
01:00:46,720 --> 01:00:48,760
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I mean I think

1219
01:00:49,000 --> 01:00:52,320
Speaker 4: that was a whole discussion about whether the film itself

1220
01:00:52,520 --> 01:00:55,360
Speaker 4: was a misogynist film. Or whether it was reflecting at

1221
01:00:55,360 --> 01:00:56,520
Speaker 4: certain attitudes of the time.

1222
01:00:56,640 --> 01:00:59,480
Speaker 1: Right, sure, yeah, but I mean that's that's what we're

1223
01:00:59,480 --> 01:01:00,120
Speaker 1: talking about.

1224
01:01:00,600 --> 01:01:03,560
Speaker 4: That was when that's where where the disagreement sort of started.

1225
01:01:04,040 --> 01:01:06,840
Speaker 4: You started for us to.

1226
01:01:06,440 --> 01:01:09,760
Speaker 3: Sort of bring it back to Jerome's question, And you

1227
01:01:09,760 --> 01:01:15,880
Speaker 3: know why we don't regularly unpack these questions on the podcast.

1228
01:01:16,480 --> 01:01:20,960
Speaker 3: I think the representation is something that is both easier

1229
01:01:21,000 --> 01:01:24,640
Speaker 3: and more useful to discuss in the cumulative like looking

1230
01:01:24,880 --> 01:01:29,000
Speaker 3: over a large swath of films or a time period

1231
01:01:29,200 --> 01:01:32,760
Speaker 3: or a certain type of film, And the conversations we

1232
01:01:32,800 --> 01:01:35,800
Speaker 3: have on this podcast are much more focused and isolated

1233
01:01:35,840 --> 01:01:40,120
Speaker 3: on single films and the connections between them. So while

1234
01:01:40,760 --> 01:01:43,800
Speaker 3: you know, a question of representation can come up within

1235
01:01:43,880 --> 01:01:47,760
Speaker 3: those discussions, I think there's only so far that we

1236
01:01:48,040 --> 01:01:52,800
Speaker 3: can to use Jerome's term, unpack that without its sprawling

1237
01:01:52,880 --> 01:01:55,840
Speaker 3: out into the wider world of film and the film

1238
01:01:55,880 --> 01:01:59,720
Speaker 3: industry and film criticism, and it just sort of takes

1239
01:01:59,800 --> 01:02:03,760
Speaker 3: us further and further away from sort of the guiding

1240
01:02:03,800 --> 01:02:08,439
Speaker 3: principle of this podcast. And you know, that's just sort

1241
01:02:08,440 --> 01:02:10,800
Speaker 3: of the way we built it, you know, and we

1242
01:02:10,840 --> 01:02:13,760
Speaker 3: can do our best to sort of nod to these conversations.

1243
01:02:14,160 --> 01:02:17,400
Speaker 3: But for you know, the reasons we've discussed, I don't

1244
01:02:17,760 --> 01:02:21,880
Speaker 3: think that we are necessarily the best equipped to really

1245
01:02:21,920 --> 01:02:23,240
Speaker 3: delve into them deeply. Here.

1246
01:02:23,760 --> 01:02:26,360
Speaker 1: Well, that is why we appreciate questions like this, which

1247
01:02:26,440 --> 01:02:28,760
Speaker 1: do give us the opportunity to do a little dig

1248
01:02:28,760 --> 01:02:31,280
Speaker 1: in and do a little self examination. I mean, I

1249
01:02:31,320 --> 01:02:33,480
Speaker 1: think all the white America can use a little more

1250
01:02:33,480 --> 01:02:36,120
Speaker 1: self examination and a little more awareness, and that this

1251
01:02:36,320 --> 01:02:38,840
Speaker 1: is a good thing. And I'm certainly trying to be

1252
01:02:38,880 --> 01:02:41,440
Speaker 1: more aware of it, especially just in the films that

1253
01:02:41,480 --> 01:02:45,080
Speaker 1: I choose to watch on my downtime. There's a huge

1254
01:02:45,120 --> 01:02:49,360
Speaker 1: wealth out there of historical films by black filmmakers and

1255
01:02:49,480 --> 01:02:52,960
Speaker 1: about black characters that I'm slowly trying to educate myself

1256
01:02:53,000 --> 01:02:55,000
Speaker 1: on a little better. And that's been a fun project.

1257
01:02:55,240 --> 01:02:57,200
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've been watching. I've been just watching a ton

1258
01:02:57,240 --> 01:03:00,120
Speaker 4: of films black filmmakers over the last few months. So,

1259
01:03:00,160 --> 01:03:02,440
Speaker 4: I mean, thanks to Criterion a lot for a lot

1260
01:03:02,440 --> 01:03:05,800
Speaker 4: of it's for things like Caine River and Losing Ground

1261
01:03:05,960 --> 01:03:08,920
Speaker 4: and Watermelon Women and Daughters of the Dust and all

1262
01:03:08,920 --> 01:03:10,960
Speaker 4: those sorts of things. Good stuff.

1263
01:03:11,280 --> 01:03:14,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, Criterion making so many of those films free streaming online.

1264
01:03:14,480 --> 01:03:16,760
Speaker 1: I think has been a real boon that we haven't

1265
01:03:16,760 --> 01:03:19,360
Speaker 1: talked enough about that people should really take advantage of

1266
01:03:19,360 --> 01:03:20,160
Speaker 1: while they have the chance.

1267
01:03:20,320 --> 01:03:21,320
Speaker 4: Definitely well.

1268
01:03:21,360 --> 01:03:23,640
Speaker 1: We always appreciate when our listeners share their thoughts and

1269
01:03:23,640 --> 01:03:26,600
Speaker 1: their recommendations. If you feel so inclined, we can feature

1270
01:03:26,600 --> 01:03:29,000
Speaker 1: your response on a future episode. To reach us, you

1271
01:03:29,040 --> 01:03:31,600
Speaker 1: can leave a short voicemail at seven seven three two

1272
01:03:31,720 --> 01:03:34,680
Speaker 1: three four nine seven three zero or email us at

1273
01:03:34,720 --> 01:03:42,840
Speaker 1: comments at Next Picture Show dot net. That's it for

1274
01:03:42,880 --> 01:03:45,480
Speaker 1: this episode of the Next Picture Show. In our next episode,

1275
01:03:45,520 --> 01:03:47,920
Speaker 1: we'll head straight back into the loop with Palm Springs,

1276
01:03:47,960 --> 01:03:51,120
Speaker 1: another comedy about an infinitely relived day. Look for that

1277
01:03:51,160 --> 01:03:54,000
Speaker 1: episode next Tuesday, or, better yet, subscribe to The Next

1278
01:03:54,000 --> 01:03:57,080
Speaker 1: Picture Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or you're a podcastcher

1279
01:03:57,120 --> 01:03:59,600
Speaker 1: of choice. Even better still, you can support us on

1280
01:03:59,600 --> 01:04:02,320
Speaker 1: patron on at patreon dot com, slash at Next Picture Show,

1281
01:04:02,720 --> 01:04:04,760
Speaker 1: find us at Next Picture Show dot net, follow us

1282
01:04:04,760 --> 01:04:07,520
Speaker 1: at Facebook dot com slash Next Picture Show, and follow

1283
01:04:07,600 --> 01:04:09,960
Speaker 1: us on Twitter at Next Picture pod so you'll always

1284
01:04:10,000 --> 01:04:13,400
Speaker 1: know when a new episode drops. Until then, remember, don't

1285
01:04:13,640 --> 01:04:17,000
Speaker 1: drive angry, don't drive angry, and if you do have

1286
01:04:17,040 --> 01:04:18,800
Speaker 1: to drive angry, don't do it. In quarry,